Supreme Court Ruling: Indefinite Detention For Sex Offenders

In a 7-2 decision, the justices declared that a federal law allowing federal prisoners deemed "sexually dangerous" to be held even after they have served out their original sentences is constitutional.

The Court said Congress does have the power to keep such dangerous offenders out of society indefinitely.

Justice Clarence Thomas dissented, arguing that Congress went too far, and nothing in the Constitution permits this kind of extended confinement.

Did the Supreme Court get it right? Or is this just another expansion of federal power?

Since September 2001, I can't believe the actions of our government. This is not the land of the FREE anymore, it's the land of the locked up. What are we doing people? Look who we are becoming! If we allow the government to lock up American Citizens and throw away the key even after they have completed their sentence we are in trouble. More and more laws on written every day. Not affected yet? You will be. Big Brother is growing stronger. Before 1980, the prison population in the United States basically stayed at around only 250,000 people a year. Since that time, the number of incarcerated Americans has risen to over 2.5 MILLION people. That is 1 out of every 33 Citizens!! Revolution is coming. I hear Paul Revere!!


I know Ill get a lot of flack for this post,but this is a civil rights issue.
Im not saying that sex offenders shouldn't have to pay for crimes committed.Im saying that sex offenders should have the right not to be mistreated and abused
at the hands of the state.
--=====--
They start with the Sex offenders and soon were all on a list..That how the holocaust started. With the List.

Pot Could Tilt Races In Oregon

While Democrats are watching turnout levels in California to gauge the ability of marijuana ballot initiatives to turn out young voters, organizers to the north point to a second case study, which concludes that such a referendum would dramatically bolster interest in voting.

Backers of an Oregon measure to regulate the buying and selling of medical marijuana commissioned a poll to determine the effect of the question on young, progressive voters inclined to sit out the election. Pollsters quizzed 400 Oregonians who described themselves as Democrats or independents and rated their interest in the midterm election between one and five on a scale to ten. Half of the voters were given information about Measure 74 and the other half were told about the race for governor, currently a dead heat between Democrat John Kitzhaber and Republican Chris Dudley.

Voters told about the pot initiative were more than twice as likely to increase their interest voting -- which, in Oregon, is done by mail.

President Obama will visit Oregon on Wednesday to try to rally young voters. At least two Oregon House races remain competitive, with freshman Democrat Kurt Schrader and long-serving progressive Peter DeFazio fending off challengers.

Unlikely voters who were told about the pot initiative increased their interest in vote by an average of 3.5 points on the ten-point scale. By a margin of 62 to 21, they overwhelmingly support the measure and at a rate of 50 to 23, they prefer the Democratic candidate for governor. Both candidates, however, have spoken against the pot measure.

Medical marijuana is currently legal in Oregon, but voters rejected a 2004 measure that would have expanded the program to legalize dispensaries. The Yes on 74 campaign's war chest is filled with little more than seeds and stems, but the organization hopes that Democrats and organized labor will recognize the political wisdom of touting Measure 74 and offer the campaign some in-kind assistance.

Motivating young people to engage in politics, especially in an off-year, midterm election, is no simple matter. But the Oregon survey reflects what political operatives have found in California, Colorado and Washington state.



While Democrats are watching turnout levels in California to gauge the ability of marijuana ballot initiatives to turn out young voters, organizers to the north point to a second case study, which concludes that such a referendum would dramatically bolster interest in voting.

Backers of an Oregon measure to regulate the buying and selling of medical marijuana commissioned a poll to determine the effect of the question on young, progressive voters inclined to sit out the election. Pollsters quizzed 400 Oregonians who described themselves as Democrats or independents and rated their interest in the midterm election between one and five on a scale to ten. Half of the voters were given information about Measure 74 and the other half were told about the race for governor, currently a dead heat between Democrat John Kitzhaber and Republican Chris Dudley.

Voters told about the pot initiative were more than twice as likely to increase their interest voting -- which, in Oregon, is done by mail.

President Obama will visit Oregon on Wednesday to try to rally young voters. At least two Oregon House races remain competitive, with freshman Democrat Kurt Schrader and long-serving progressive Peter DeFazio fending off challengers.

Unlikely voters who were told about the pot initiative increased their interest in vote by an average of 3.5 points on the ten-point scale. By a margin of 62 to 21, they overwhelmingly support the measure and at a rate of 50 to 23, they prefer the Democratic candidate for governor. Both candidates, however, have spoken against the pot measure.

Medical marijuana is currently legal in Oregon, but voters rejected a 2004 measure that would have expanded the program to legalize dispensaries. The Yes on 74 campaign's war chest is filled with little more than seeds and stems, but the organization hopes that Democrats and organized labor will recognize the political wisdom of touting Measure 74 and offer the campaign some in-kind assistance.

Motivating young people to engage in politics, especially in an off-year, midterm election, is no simple matter. But the Oregon survey reflects what political operatives have found in California, Colorado and Washington state.
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Young, inspired voters were a key constituency that elected Obama in 2008, and their turnout in 2012 -- when a number of swing states are considering marijuana initiatives -- could determine control of the White House and Congress.

Voters fired up by pot are already working to drive California turnout for November.

Activists from Just Say Now have made nearly 6,000 calls in the last week, organizers say, using an online tool to turn out voters supportive of Proposition 19, which would legalize marijuana. Just Say Now is coordinating with the Women's Marijuana Movement, which is also phone-banking on behalf of Prop 19, targeting women, who tend to vote Democratic.

Hundreds of mothers have signed a letter endorsing Prop 19, arguing controlling and taxing marijuana usage will make their communities safer for children. A small group of moms released the letter Tuesday and discussed their support for the measure.

"What we're doing with the policies that are in place now is hampering the kind of conversations we need to be able to have with our children," said Hanna Dershowitz, a lawyer and mother of two. "A reasonable conversation," she said, can only take place "in the context of controlled regulated marijuana."

Gretchen Burns-Bergman, a mother of two and Executive Director of Parents for Addiction Treatment and Healing, said she's all too familiar with the problems of pot prohibition and wonders how many other lives have been devastated by the policy.

"I know the damage of marijuana prohibition firsthand," Burns-Bergman said in a conference call with reporters Tuesday. "My son was arrested in 1990 for marijuana possession, which began a decade-long saga, a tremendous emotional saga for our family, a wasting of potential, and a tremendous tax burden to the state to incarcerate him."

Burns-Bergman said after his first arrest at age 20, her son was in an out of prison for 11 years, learning to inject heroin while behind bars. "Taking somebody who is a nonviolent pot smoker and introducing him to this kind of a system is terribly damaging," she said.

Buffalo Springfield Reunite At Bridge School Benefit

Buffalo Springfield reunited at Young’s annual Bridge School Benefit this weekend. The weekend featured a lot of big names, including Elvis Costello, Elton John, Jackson Brown, Pearl Jam and Billy Idol (along with Grizzly Bear, Modest Mouse, Leon Russell, Neko Case, Emmylou Harris, etc.), but the Buffalo Springfield reunion was the first time the band were back together (or, as back together as they could be) since their 1968 breakup. Neil Young, Stephen Stills, and Richie Furay played with Young’s bassist, Rick Rosas (subbing for the late Bruce Palmer) and drummer Joe Vitale (in for Dewey Martin, who passed away last year). Watch them do “Mr. Soul,” “Rock & Roll Woman,” and other below:

Big names line up in support and against pot dispensaries.

Troy Torgerson says medical marijuana helps him manage his pain.

PORTLAND, Ore. – One thing voters may notice in Oregon’s Voters’ Guide this election is that some big names are supporting Measure 74, a measure that would green-light state-sanctioned medical marijuana dispensaries.

Turn on your radio Monday and you might hear a new ad with the voice of former Portland mayor and police chief, Tom Potter, supporting the measure.

“But I do support Measure 74,” he says in the ad. “It regulates medical marijuana. That change is overdue. Since medical marijuana is legal, we need to regulate it.”

The measure would allow patients like Troy Torgerson to buy pot and no longer depend on a personal grower or other patients with extra medical marijuana.

“I’m in a lot of pain, so the medicine does help a lot,” he says.

“Too many patients do not have access to medical cannabis,” says Anthony Johnson, co-author of Measure 74. “Patients that are homebound, seriously ill - a patient who gets diagnosed with cancer and must undergo chemotherapy shouldn’t have to wait three months for harvest or have to turn to the black market.”

Opponents to the measure say the measure is an attempt to legalize pot and will open more people up to drug addiction.

The Oregon Medical Association, which represents doctors, urges people to vote no, writing, it “exceeds the needs of unhealthy Oregonians and is beyond the practice of good medicine.” It will “result in the legalization of marijuana beyond any possible medical market under the medically unsubstantiated guise of medical need.”

The three major law enforcement associations - the Oregon District Attorneys Association, the Oregon Sheriff’s Association and the Oregon Association of Chiefs of Police – all oppose Measure 74.

“We’re at a crossroads of taking this drug to basically legality,” says the sheriff of Clatsop County, Tom Bergin, who’s one of the most outspoken opponents of Measure 74.

“And when you legalize something like this (availability) it means more abuse,” he says.

“If Measure 74 works effectively like we believe it does, it may very well help lead to legalization in the future,” says Johnson, “but that’s a debate for another time and Measure 74 should be debated on its own merits.”

There are more than 36,000 people enrolled in Oregon’s medical marijuana program which is about one percent of all Oregonians. California, New Mexico and Maine already have dispensaries.

Vote Yes for Measure 74

In DC, No Such Thing as Too Poor For Medical Pot

WASHINGTON - There should be no such thing as too poor to buy pot if you live in D.C., at least if the marijuana is for a medical condition.

That's part of the conclusion of a new law enacted in the nation's capital earlier this year. The medical marijuana law allows people to legally obtain the drug for medical reasons. But the law also includes a provision different from the 14 other states with medical marijuana laws, requiring the drug to be provided at a discount to poor residents. Who will get the reduced-price marijuana and how much it will cost, however, is still being worked out.

City officials say they plan to publish their first draft of regulations implementing the law on Friday. Patients aren't expected to be able to purchase medical marijuana in the city until 2011.

How Did an Entire Political Party Decide to Reject Climate Change Science?

Ron Brownstein notes in a terrific new National Journal column just how striking it is to see a major American political party decide, all at once, to reject climate science in its entirety. (via Jay Rosen)

British Foreign Secretary William Hague, a prominent conservative leader in the U.K., was in the U.S. last week, and described climate change as perhaps the 21st century’s biggest foreign-policy challenge,” He added, “An effective response to climate change underpins our security and prosperity.”

His strong words make it easier to recognize that Republicans in this country are coalescing around a uniquely dismissive position on climate change. The GOP is stampeding toward an absolutist rejection of climate science that appears unmatched among major political parties around the globe, even conservative ones. [...]

Just for the record, when the nonpartisan National Academy of Sciences last reviewed the data this spring, it concluded: “A strong, credible body of scientific evidence shows that climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for a broad range of human and natural systems.” Not only William Hague but such other prominent European conservatives as French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have embraced that widespread scientific conviction and supported vigorous action.

Indeed, it is difficult to identify another major political party in any democracy as thoroughly dismissive of climate science as is the GOP here. Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, says that although other parties may contain pockets of climate skepticism, there is “no party-wide view like this anywhere in the world that I am aware of.”

And in case this isn’t clear, unanimous Republican opposition to any meaningful efforts to combat global warming makes any kind of coordinated international effort impossible.

What’s more, as the climate crisis intensifies, and the need for swift action becomes even more painfully obvious, the GOP line is getting worse, not better. How many Republican U.S. Senate candidates on the ballot this year support efforts to address global warming? None.

I realize that part of the problem here is that Republicans reject the science because they oppose the solutions. If they acknowledged reality, GOP officials would no doubt have a harder time explaining why they don’t want to deal with a climate crisis that has the potential to wreak havoc on the planet in dramatically dangerous ways.

But the result is the same. The combination of deliberate Republican ignorance and the Republican scheme to break the United States Senate makes the crisis even more serious, with little hope on the horizon. It also speaks to a larger truth — because there’s no commonly shared reality among Democratic and Republican policymakers, the prospects for compromise are effectively non-existent.

Sen. Susan Collins (R) of Maine this morning noted, “I don’t know who first described politics as the ‘art of compromise,’ but that maxim, to which I have always subscribed, seems woefully unfashionable today.”

Yeah, I wonder why that is.

Health care should be a civil right.

With a nation as rich as the United States hell ya! health care should be a civil right.The U.S. is the only one of all democratic countries not to have health care for everyone.Its time that this be recognized in the U.S. to.

John Lennon's 70th birthday celebrated in Central Park

NEW YORK — It's hard to imagine which event sounds more implausible: John Lennon's 70th birthday, or the 30th anniversary of his murder.

On the day when the Liverpool Lad would have become a septuagenarian, fans will visit Central Park's tranquil Strawberry Fields and attend a nearby benefit concert in Manhattan.

The memorial to the slain ex-Beatle and peace activist includes a mosaic donated by the city of Naples, Italy. A plaque lists 121 countries that endorse Strawberry Fields as a Garden of Peace.

The song observes that "living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see."

The birthday celebration got started on Friday in England, where Google UK released a video "doodle" to a Lennon soundtrack.