U.S. to end war on medical marijuana in legal states

 

By James Vicini and Dan Whitcomb

WASHINGTON/LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - In a sharp policy shift, the Obama administration told federal attorneys not to prosecute patients who use marijuana for medical reasons or dispensaries in states where it has been legalized.

A Justice Department official said the formal guidelines were issued Monday to reflect President Barack Obama's views. The Bush administration had said it could enforce the federal law against marijuana and that it trumped state laws.

The decision was praised by activists in California, the first state to legalize medical marijuana in 1996. But concern remains among some medical and law enforcement authorities about hundreds of clinics said to be selling pot under the protection of state law and without regard to health.

A spokesman for California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger issued a brief statement in which Schwarzenegger appeared to support the policy change:

"The governor believes it is appropriate for the federal government to focus their resources on criminal activity and securing the border," the statement said.

As a candidate during his presidential bid last year, Obama said he intended to halt raids of medical marijuana facilities operating legally under state laws.

After he took office in January, a Drug Enforcement Administration raid on a dispensary in Lake Tahoe, California, raised questions about whether he would follow that pledge.

A White House spokesman repeated Obama's view that "federal resources should not be used to circumvent state laws."

Stephen Gutwillig, California head of the Drug Policy Alliance, called the move a good first step.

"There is a fundamental need of patients to access marijuana as medicine right now," he said. "While it's great to see the Obama administration radically de-escalate the Bush and Clinton administrations' war on medical marijuana patients, more needs to be done to protect sick people and their caregivers."

(continued…)

U.S. to end war on medical marijuana in legal states | U.S. | Reuters

Tell The Senate to Treat Drugs As Health, Not Crime, Issue

By Law Enforcement Against Prohibition - Soon the U.S. Senate will hold a hearing to confirm President Obama's nominee for White House "drug czar." Since everyone - the president included - knows that addiction is a health, and not a crime problem, let's ask the Senate to move the hearing from the Judiciary Committee to the committee that handles health issues. Let's send a message!

When asked last July by Rolling Stone magazine if he would continue the "war on
drugs" or make significant changes in course, then-candidate Barack Obama said,
“I believe in shifting the paradigm, shifting the model, so that we focus more on a public-health approach.”

Right now we have an opportunity to make this well-founded position a reality by sending a strong message to the U.S. Senate, which will soon be holding a confirmation hearing for the new White House "drug czar."

Please take one minute to send the message below, asking that the hearing be held by the committee that oversees operation of our country’s health care, instead of by the Judiciary Committee, which handles crime and which has historically handled the confirmations.

Treating drug use as a criminal justice issue hasn’t deterred drug use, but it has filled our prisons and clogged our courts. We know the Obama administration agrees, at least rhetorically. Let’s ask our senators to make this needed shift a reality.

Please click on 'read more' to send a message to your senator!
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Obama Mocks Marijuana Question

In an unusual Town Hall format, Pres. Obama fielded the most popular questions sent to the White House website. Marijuana was No. 1 on the list.



“I have to say that there was one question that was voted on that ranked fairly high, and that was whether legalizing marijuana would improve the economy and job creation... I don't know what that says about the online audience," he joked.

“We want to make sure that it was answered. The answer is, no, I don't think that is a good strategy to grow our economy.”

One of the first activist reponses comes from Jack Cole, executive director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP). He tells CelebStoner: "Despite the president's flippant comments today, the grievous harms of marijuana prohibition are no laughing matter. Certainly, the 800,000 people arrested last year on marijuana charges find nothing funny about it, nor do the millions of Americans struggling in this sluggish economy. It would be an enormous economic stimulus if we stopped wasting so much money arresting and locking people up for non-violent drug offenses and instead brought in new tax revenue from legal sales, just as we did when we ended alcohol prohibition 75 years ago during the Great Depression."

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Rage Is Good

Demonstrations April 4 calling Wall Street to account could help progressive populism come alive in America. Obama and Congress need the pressure.

By Tom Hayden - Hopefully, the demonstrations planned on Wall Street April 4 by United for Peace and Justice and other groups will contribute to the global uprising. Our president and Congress need the pressure.

The world has turned against American hegemony before: against the Vietnam war, against the World Trade Organization and against the invasion of Iraq. On all three occasions, the world was right and Washington was wrong.

On this occasion, the global economy is being devastated by the Wall Street crash. Hundreds of millions are are hurtling into extreme poverty, export industries are collapsing, currencies being destabilized.

As the conservative French president Nicolas Sarkozy says, "Laissez-faire, c'est fini." (Laissez-faire is finished.)

As nations blame Wall Street and move to protect their people, the protests need not be anti-American nor anti-Obama. Sarkozy cannot be accused of being anti-US. Neither are Iceland nor Ukraine. The global opposition might just may be what we need, an organized populist counterforce to the business and banking lobbies entrenched in Washington.

Obama's stimulus package and proposed budget are not the problem. They represent the most progressive government initiatives in a half-century. But as Franch Rich noted in the New York Times March 1, Obama "was fuzzy when it came to what he wanted to do about" more bailouts.

The Obama administration is in trouble on the question of what to do about the financial system and the credit crisis. But Rich is wrong, for once, in suggesting that it's "bad news" for Obama that "the genuine populist rage in the country...cannot be ignored or finessed."

The "bad news" is really an opportunity for progressives, unions and Democrats to build a bottom-up populist alternative to the "greed is good" politics of Wall Street, which has infested both parties. Obama should privately welcome "populist rage" as a stimulus to reform. If he does not, he may see right-wing populism making a comeback as soon as 2010.

Some progressives, including even Warren Beatty, think it's time to introduce a discussion of socialism, if only to point out that our present course is one of socialism for the banks and corporations. Obama himself says good things about Sweden's nationalization of banks, but quickly demurs that Americans are not "culturally" ready for such an option. At the Washington Post, Harold Meyerson, a democratic socialist in the tradition of Michael Harrington, prefers re-regulation to either nationalization or socialism at this point: "To avoid socialism (to whatever extent throwing public money at banks is socialism) you need liberalism (that is, the willingness to restrain capitalism from its periodic self-destruction.)

My sense is that we are moving too rapidly towards economic hell for a socialist ideology to catch up. While efforts to dust off and legitimize the term will go on, Meyerson is right that the battlefield just ahead is over reregulation, which may evolve into a contentious, awkward, bureaucratic nationalization out of necessity. That is why the sturdier and heavily regulated Canadian and Swedish banking systems already are being closely examined.
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Obama admin. to reverse Bush stance at UN on gay rights

The Associated Press has learned that the Obama administration will sign a U.N. declaration calling for the worldwide decriminalization of homosexuality that President George W. Bush had refused to endorse.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration on Wednesday formally endorsed a U.N. statement calling for the worldwide decriminalization of homosexuality, a measure that former President George W. Bush had refused to sign.

The move was the administration's latest in reversing Bush-era decisions that have been heavily criticized by human rights and other groups. The United States was the only western nation not to sign onto the declaration when it came up at the U.N. General Assembly in December."

The United States supports the U.N.'s statement on human rights, sexual orientation and gender identity and is pleased to join the other 66 U.N. member states who have declared their support of the statement," said State Department spokesman Robert Wood.

"The United States is an outspoken defender of human rights and critic of human rights abuses around the world," Wood told reporters. "As such, we join with other supporters of this statement, and we will continue to remind countries of the importance of respecting the human rights of all people in all appropriate international fora."

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If President Obama Twittered

funny

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Want To Debate Obama? Then Announce Rush Limbaugh 2012!

Rush, if you believe your ideas are so much better, that your message is so correct and convincing that if you stood on an equal platform with the President of the United States, you would really clean his clock, then there is a way you could debate him... run for president!

Democrats have painted the Republican Party into a corner... Well, more like pinning them under the weight of polarizing gabber Rush Limbaugh. The GOP is flummoxed -- most of all their leader. Despite describing himself as "The Last Man Standing," he insists those in the White House made him the nation's top Republican, just to tear him down.

Sorry, but as powerful and persuasive as President Obama is, he doesn't decide who runs the Republican Party; the Republicans do. And they're voting with their feet as each and every one of them who offends 'El Rushbo' has to go and beg for his forgiveness. (And yet they talk about Democrats worshiping Obama...)

Nevertheless, Rush went on a self-pitying spiel about being on an "enemies list," trying to conjure up images of Obama as a modern day paranoid Nixon. Nice try, but no cigar.

But he did come up with a pretty brilliant rejoinder: challenging the President to a debate.

Of course, it would have to take place on his show, which wouldn't hurt in expanding the ratings past the party faithful, if only for a day. He even offered to lend him his private jet to fly down to his "Excellency In Broadcasting" studio in sunny Palm Beach.

Following a rant on the topics he'd like to discuss (the "I Hope He Fails" greatest hits collection), Rush laid it out like this:

If you can win at this, then come here and beat me at my own game, and get rid of me once and for all, and show all the people of America that I am wrong.

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Updated*** Iraq plan: Most troops out by August 2010

By DAVID S. CLOUD - President Barack Obama campaigned on a pledge to end U.S. involvement in Iraq, but he always threw in the caveat that he wanted to consult with military commanders before making a final decision.

As he prepares to outline his withdrawal plan Friday in a speech to Marines at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, he has slightly modified his campaign plan for removing U.S. forces to allay concerns among commanders that fragile security gains in Iraq could be jeopardized unless the drawdown plans are handled carefully.

But the plan Obama will outline does not back away in major ways from his pledge to withdraw U.S. combat forces. Instead of a 16-month withdrawal period, as he originally called for, most of the troops now in Iraq would be withdrawn over the next 19 months, leaving by August 2010, senior officials said.

Even under this slightly delayed timetable, the Pentagon would bring at least 92,000 troops home over the next year and a half, a massive exodus that is likely to satisfy most Americans that he is fulfilling his promise to bring the war to a close, even if some top Democrats say it's not enough.

The remaining U.S. forces— totaling between 35,000 and 50,000 —would have a scaled-down mission focused on advising Iraqi forces, protecting civilian reconstruction projects and carrying out counter-terrorism operations.

Senior administration officials emphasized that Obama is determined to remove all U.S. troops by the end of the 2011, as called for under an agreement signed by Iraqi and Bush administration officials. At least for now, Obama does not plan on asking Iraqi officials to allow any to remain in the country after that deadline.

If that is carried out, it would end the U.S. military presence in Iraq on a timetable that is far shorter than almost anyone anticipated.

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Update****
It's official...

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Did We Really Do It?

I like this post by Mark Morford! I feel the same way as he does when I see the issues that have long been "swept under the carpet" actually addressed! It's still hard to trust after 8 years of hell! I expect it maybe that way for awhile.
You gotta admit, it's so exciting to be able to have our President listen to us...that we got it right this time!
Peace,
soul
Obama vs. The Fear / Mark Morford - At any given moment you can pause in whatever it is you're suffering from and hear that voice and see his visage or perhaps merely hear some pundit say the words "President Obama" out loud, and you can still enjoy that delicious chill, that little jolt that says, "Oh my God, did we really do it?

So then, the wistful Obama swoon? Still right there. Still accessible. Still agreeably valid. This is the good news.

But oh, the dark side loometh. By Obama's own insistence that he be held accountable for it all, no one knows for sure if all of these spectacular, historic moves -- the bailouts, the massive recovery program, the jobs, housing, overhauls in health care and education and etcetera -- if any of it, will actually work.

It is, by every estimation, the biggest political and fiscal gamble in a generation, maybe five. It is dicey and dangerous and wildly progressive in scope and ambition, and you know this is true because many bitter, unloved Republicans are seething and whining and tearing into every Obama idea they can find, simply because said plans don't do enough to fellate the wealthy and worship oil companies and ignore children.

Maybe longtime pundit David Gergen said it best when he noted that Obama's agenda is more than merely a stack of dramatic, expensive proposals. It's actually more akin to FDR's New Deal rolled into Lyndon Johnson's Great Society; the grand sum of what Obama is attempting to do just so happens to be "the greatest political drama in our lifetime."

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Obama's New Drug Czar: Good News for Marijuana Advocates

Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske is reportedly Obama's choice for drug czar. He's overseen one of America's most pot-friendly cities. If he was cool with Hempfest in Seattle, what can we talk him into when he comes to Washington, DC?

Posted in Chronicle Blog by Scott Morgan - The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is reporting that Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske will likely be Obama’s nominee for director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, commonly referred to as the drug czar. It appears that we may soon be faced with the most promising drug czar ever to occupy the position.

To be clear, Kerlikowske is not a friend of drug policy reform to any extent I’m aware of. What matters here is that I see no evidence that he is a vicious drug warrior of the sort commonly associated with the drug czar post. Given that ONDCP is mandated to oppose reform efforts and has typically embraced that role, a less confrontational and reefer madness-driven drug czar is really the best case scenario from a drug policy reform perspective.

Under Kerlikowske, Seattle has been a model for sensible marijuana policy, including the famous Seattle Hempfest at which the Seattle Police Department performs a public safety role while declining to make marijuana arrests. Following the passage of a 2004 lowest priority initiative, the city’s already-low rate of marijuana prosecutions fell even further, suggesting that Kerlikowske was responsive to the will of voters.

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Ten Reasons to Get High About Marijuana in 2009

Okay, it is only February 1st, and more people this year have already died from peanut butter than pot.
Seriously, when you think about what has crossed the pages of our nation’s conscience in the past month, you have to wonder why we are all not getting high.
With thanks to Michael Phelps, I have ten good reasons to believe drug law reform will ‘take’ this year. Here is why.
Number One: The President
First of all, we elected a President who has admitted inhaling, and whose half brother just got arrested in Kenya for possession of marijuana. Growing up in urban Chicago, and having come from Hawaii, home of ‘Maui Waui,’ we have a man in the oval office that has an herbal background.
I am therefore not intimidated that, on his third day in office, while he was working on a nationwide economic stimulus package, some renegade prosecutors raided a medical dispensary in California. Those ugly efforts will cease soon enough. I am encouraged by President Obama’s prior public statements that such raids are counterproductive and provide illusory answers to real problems.
Number Two: The Medicine
Just as I was exploring the placement of my mom into an assisted living facility for early stage Alzheimer’s patients, I see a study released by Ohio State University this month. The research is indicating that marijuana has some potential capacity to reduce brain inflammation, which plays a role in Alzheimer’s. Mom, those brownies might taste differently next week.
While evidence showing the benefits of marijuana in multiple sclerosis cases has been advancing significantly, work in Alzheimer’s disease is still in its infancy. Still, another recent study performed at the Scripps Research Institute in California found that THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, inhibits the formation of a brain plaque that is a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease.
Number Three: The Politics
If you light up a joint while walking down High Street in Medford, Massachusetts, not much is likely to happen to you. As of Jan. 2, Massachusetts became one of 12 states that have decriminalized marijuana possession to some extent. The new civil penalties for possession of less than 1 ounce include a $100 fine and forfeiture of one’s stash for those over 18 years of age. Minors will receive the same fine and be required to attend drug education classes.
In city after city, and state after state, once silent minorities are becoming vocal majorities and voting to enact legislation freeing marijuana from unjust law enforcement. When given the chance, we are winning the war against prohibition. Legislators in Michigan, Connecticut and even Florida are starting to re-introduce bills to lower penalties for pot. The whirlwind is commencing; just ask anyone in a dorm room within a wave of the White House after the inauguration.
Number Four: The Media
Marijuana has gone mainstream. Media outlets are no longer hiding in the shadows afraid to produce honest reports about the culture of marijuana. We are less likely to see commercials of pot smokers having their brains grilled in a frying pan. We are more likely to view legitimate programming which produces truths rather than trash about your stash.
One such report was featured on NBC news last week, a snippet of an hour long production on MSNBC entitled ‘Marijuana, Inc.’ Focusing more on economics then the sociology of pot, the well-supported report inescapably concluded that marijuana commerce is here to stay and unlikely to change. As even the NY Daily News said, “When it comes to marijuana, a whole lot of people voted some time ago to just say yes.” Ask the cast of the award winning Showtime series, ‘Weeds,’ which captures a growing American spirit.
Number Five: The Public
Even the Department of Health has said that 95 million Americans have over the age of 21 have tried marijuana at least once. Everyone except Bill Clinton has inhaled. The anti drug warriors have a hard time explaining to the average adult in the 21st century that millions of Americans are wrong when they light up every day.
It is normal to smoke pot. The vast amount of marijuana users today are parents choosing to calm down instead of liquor up, not just kids, looking to get high after class. Of course, they are too, adults treating arthritis, patients using it for multiple sclerosis, or people with HIV fighting a wasting syndrome. Pot smokers cross ethnic, sociological, and economic boundaries.
Number Six: The Celebrities
There is a lot of reason to hate the celebrity culture, paparazzi, and people who get their daily pulp from finding out where Brittany Spears went shopping. As more media types get busted with pot, the less newsworthy it becomes. The public could care less. An arrest for pot is not a career-ending event. As I finish this piece and send it off for distribution, I am watching Snoop Doggy Dogg being interviewed on ESPN for the NFL Countdown to the Super Bowl. It does not seem to have hurt him. And guess what Michael Phelps got caught doing this weekend? Toking off a bong!
Macauley Culkin, Bud Bundy, Willie Nelson, Art Garfunkel, and Al Gore’s son also make the High Subscription List. So do Allen Iverson, Matthew McConaughey, Whitney Houston, Oliver Stone, and even Queen Latifah. All have posted bail for pot. They are not doing too badly for themselves. Go visit Celebstoner for more prime examples of the intersection of celebrity and cannabis.
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Daschle Paid $100,000 in Back Taxes During Vetting

Wow...talk about a trend of Obama appointees: Tom Daschle, Obama's pick to lead Health and Human Services, paid around $100,000 in back taxes after his nomination to pay for a car and driver he was supplied but did not report as income.
By JONATHAN WEISMAN
Tom Daschle, President Barack Obama's choice for secretary of Health and Human Services, paid about $140,000 in back taxes and interest after questions surfaced during the vetting of his nomination, according to documents being prepared by the Senate Finance Committee. (See full Senate Finance Committee statement.)
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'A bad first-day hit' for Daschle

By JONATHAN MARTIN & CRAIG GORDON
With President Barack Obama’s talking like the new sheriff of Wall Street this week, it seems like just the kind of thing he’d rail against – a rich political insider who doesn’t pay taxes on his limousine. Except that in this case, it’s Obama’s nominee for health and human services secretary, Tom Daschle. The White House said Saturday that Obama remains committed to Daschle’s nomination. A West Wing official twice stressed that Obama is dedicated to enduring the fallout—now the second politically embarrassing case of a high-level appointee failing to pay taxes. “Every nomination has bumps along the road but they handle it,” said this official. Sources close to Daschle said they’ve gotten reassurances from the White House that Obama was not wavering. “They knew it was coming and they’d have to take a hit”—and in this case, “a bad first-day hit”—said a person familiar with Daschle’s thinking.
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Obama's half brother charged for marijuana possession

It sucks when your little brother gets arrested for marijuana possession and you're the President of the United States...not, it should be a non-issue! Unless of course, Obama gets little CARE packages from Kenyan...

George Obama, the half brother of U.S. President Barack Obama, has been arrested by Kenyan police on a charge of possession of marijuana, police said Saturday. Inspector Augustine Mutembei, the officer in charge, said Obama was arrested on charges of possession of cannabis, known in Kenya as Bhang, and resisting arrest.

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Obama's First Broken Promise

By Angie Drobnic Holan
Barack Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act on Jan. 29, 2009, keeping a longstanding promise to counter a Supreme Court decision that limited workers' ability to sue for pay discrimination. We moved the Obameter and gave him a Promise Kept.

But we also had to give him his first Promise Broken for the same signing. As part of his agenda to bring more transparency to government, Obama said he would institute "sunlight before signing" -- posting laws to the White House Web site for five days of public comment before he signed off on them.

Read details on the Ledbetter Act here and "sunlight before signing" here.

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Obama boasts about his ‘Single Ladies’ moves

I think this is cute and funny! Take it as you may.
Peace

President Barack Obama has admitted to being a “Single Ladies” fan. In a behind-the-scenes video from the inauguration festivities, posted on singer John Legend’s Web site, the President told Beyonce that he’d done her dance routine from the “Single Ladies” video for the First Family.

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I found this video on MTV. At about the 6 minute mark the First Lady walked up and said, "Mr. President, you didn't tell Beyoncé about 'Single Ladies'? Your rendition?"

"This is incredible, right?" Legend said looking out into the audience of tens of thousands who crowded around the reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial for the all-star show. "It's overwhelming," Beyoncé added, as Legend encouraged her to "break into 'Single Ladies' right now."
Things got better a few minutes later, as Obama was giving warm hugs to B, Blige and Latifah. Michelle Obama walked up and said, "Mr. President, you didn't tell Beyoncé about 'Single Ladies'? Your rendition?"
The Commander in Cool laughed and said, "I'm not like Justin [Timberlake]; I didn't put on the outfit," referring to JT's now-infamous "Single Ladies" turn in a leotard on "Saturday Night Live." "[But] I didn't want my girls thinking that I couldn't, you know ... I got a little something."

The Video...

A video shot by someone in John Legend's crew and posted on the Vibe magazine web site shows a long line of star-struck and emotional stars giddily waiting in the cold to meet Barack Obama, among them: Legend, Sheryl Crow, Queen Latifah, Tom Hanks, Beyoncé and Mary J. Blige.

Amazing Video on Stage of the Obama Inaugural Celebration
by JayZ15

Obama Can Issue an Executive Order to End the Wars Tomorrow

By Nora Eisenberg, AlterNet - In a wide-ranging interview, veteran Paul Sullivan discusses Bush, Obama and the legacies of the Gulf War.
Paul Sullivan is a veteran of the 1991 Gulf War, serving in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq as a Cavalry Scout with the Army's 1st Armored Division.
As executive director of the National Gulf War Resource Center from 1997 to 2000, he advocated for the passage of the Persian Gulf Veterans Act of 1998, which expanded health care and disability benefits for Gulf War veterans. From 2000 to 2006, he was Veterans Affairs project manager, leading a team that produced reports related to the Gulf War, Iraq war and Afghanistan war.
Sullivan is a life member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the Disabled American Veterans and is presently the executive director of Veterans for Common Sense, a Washington nonprofit organization focusing on issues related to national security, veterans' rights and benefits and civil liberties.
Two days after the inauguration, Paul spoke with me about a number of topics, including: the lies, drugs and poisons involved in the Gulf War and its current sequels; the suicide epidemic among Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans; the rash of homicides around military bases; the need for a truth commission; skewed research on Gulf War illness at VA; signs of conspiracy and subterfuge; the legacies of Bush 41 and Bush 43; the first days of Barack Obama; and his hopes for Michelle Obama as a true friend of veterans and veterans' families.
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Rights Group Launches Series of Blueprints for the Obama Administration

A friend sent this to me.  I think it’s a good start to repairing the US human rights record and regain our image as a country that follows the edicts of The Geneva Conventions!

The blueprint series draws on the organization's extensive body of work on a range of issues to address the human rights implications of many of the international and domestic policy challenges the new administration will face:

• "How to Close Guantanamo," released last August, offers a step-by-step strategy that minimizes the risk to America's national security and ensures that detainee suspected of committing crimes against the United States are prosecuted in fair proceedings. It is based on Human Rights First's extensive work on Guantanamo -including over 25 trips to observe the proceedings since 2004 - and its study of the prosecution of terrorism cases in federal court, the findings of which can be read in the comprehensive report, "In Pursuit of Justice: Prosecuting Terrorism Cases in the Federal Courts."
• "How to End Torture and Cruel Treatment," released in October, provides a detailed, multi-phased strategy to end torture and official cruelty and to invest instead in effective and humane intelligence gathering, including offering a single standard of humane treatment across all government agencies. It draws on the organization's extensive work on, and analysis of, U.S. detention and interrogation policies since September 11, 2001, as well as its close collaboration with more than 50 retired generals, admirals and civilian national security officials to advocate against torture and official cruelty.
• "How to End Impunity for Private Security and other Contractors," released in November, offers a practical strategy for putting into place the key components of a comprehensive system of legal accountability for U.S. government contractors abroad, who now number more than 250,000 in Iraq and Afghanistan alone. Many of the findings derive from the group"s comprehensive report, "Private Security Contractors at War: Ending Contractor Impunity" which was released in January.
• "How to Repair the U.S. Asylum System," released in December, puts forward a series of concrete recommendations to restore the U.S. commitment to providing refuge to those who flee persecution and arrive in this country in search of protection. New legal obstacles, restrictions on basic due process, and overly-broad counterterrorism measures have made it increasingly difficult for refugees to gain asylum protection.
• "How to Promote Human Rights in Russia," released in December, is a country specific blueprint that advances a strategy for striking a viable balance between shared strategic concerns and the consistent promotion of human rights. The recommendations focus on two areas that are crucial to enabling Russians to promote the rule of law and secure human rights, supporting independent human rights defenders and increasing efforts to combat racism, xenophobia and violent hate crimes. The latter, a seriously escalating human rights problem, is extensively documented in Human Rights First's 2008 Hate Crime Survey.
• "How to Stop Arms to Sudan," released in December, sets out a three-stage strategy for the incoming administration to lead an effort to ensure that arms-supplying states halt their sales, as well as to use its voice and vote at the U.N. Security Council to enforce and strengthen the U.N. imposed Darfur arms embargo. This blueprint follows a rare NGO briefing of the U.N. Security Council Sanctions Committee on the Darfur arms embargo by Julia Fromholz, Interim Director of the Crimes Against Humanity program earlier this month.
• "How to Confront the Iraqi Refugee Crisis," also released in December, puts forward a strategy for the incoming Obama administration to address the Iraqi refugee crisis as part of its pledge to withdraw from Iraq. The recommendations include the proposal that the President-elect place an Iraqi refugee coordinator in the White House, responsible for ensuring that appropriate policy toward Iraqi refugees is integrated into U.S. strategic and operational plans in Iraq, and for the U.S. government to set "refugee benchmarks" for the Iraqi government and for U.S. assistance to shift from the government to NGOs if those benchmarks are not met.

Rights Group Launches Series of Blueprints for the Obama Administration

Technorati Tags: human rights,US,President Obama,Barack Obama

Obama reaches out to Muslim world on TV

Fantastic! President Obama is reaching out to the Muslim world, something no other president has been able to do. I'm really happy that the US will no longer be 'dictating' what the middle east should do. The US has no clue what it must be like for the people of the middle eastern countries.

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama gave his first formal television interview as president to an Arabic cable TV network, saying that when it comes to Middle East matters "all too often the United States starts by dictating."

Obama taped the interview with the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya network Monday as his envoy to the Middle East, former Sen. George J. Mitchell, set out for an eight-day trip to the region and elsewhere. The interview complemented the new administration's first efforts to reach out to Arab leaders in the region, who have been wary at best of U.S. efforts to broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

Noting that he has lived in Muslim countries and has Muslim family members, Obama said: "My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy."

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David Bergman 1,474-Megapixel Pic of Obama's Inauguration

An incredibly detailed panoramic picture of the inauguration, zoom in to the some of the small details.

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