Schumer Urges DEA to Target Online K2 Sales

Sen. Charles Schumer is urging the Drug Enforcement Administration to create a special investigative unit to target online sales of synthetic marijuana.

The New York Democrat said that despite state bans on fake pot, dealers are able to sell it online to users as well as retailers. A special unit within the DEA could investigate these dealers and notify credit card companies to stop transactions involved in purchasing the drugs, he said.

Federal statistics show some 2,300 emergency room visits in a two-month period were related to synthetic marijuana use, and that poison control center calls about the drug are surging around the nation, Schumer said.

Synthetic marijuana, commonly referred to as K2, is designed to mimic actual marijuana but can have very different effects on the brain and body.

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Trump & GOP Panic As Obama Launches Plan To Make 8 Million Immigrants Eligible To Vote

Immigration and the 11 million undocumented folks living in the United States have been catapulted to the forefront of American politics and have become the over-hyped, fabricated non-problem of the day. Donald Trump launched his campaign for president by spewing hateful rhetoric about “Mexican rapists” and scapegoating minorities in a shameful appeal to the Republican Party’s xenophobic, racist base. While the move may have allowed Trump to skyrocket to number one in the polls, it 

prompted millions of Americans with an undocumented immigrant family member to start looking for ways to push back against the right-wing hate that has been the focal point of the race for the White House; luckily for us, President Obama is stepping in and has sent a resounding message of support to legal American immigrants and a firm rebuke of Trump’s divisive rabble-rousing.

On Thursday, the White House announced plans to help the 8.8 million legal immigrants in the country to become American citizens. The  “Stand Stronger” Citizenship Awareness Campaign will be a multifaceted effort to change their immigration status so that they can fight back against the GOP hate in voting booths.

The outreach program will include a number of new ways to help the immigrants who want to become citizens. It includes:

• allow naturalization fees to be paid by credit card
• online civics practice tests
• a mobile citizenship class locator, including where to find English classes
• four prominent new Americans and children of immigrants as Presidential Ambassadors for Citizenship and Naturalization.
• expand the availability of pro-bono legal services to eligible legal immigrants

The pro-bono legal service expansion is huge. Contrary to popular Republican belief, the road to citizenship is not only difficult, but is costs thousands of dollars — and that’s before attorney fees. For this reason many immigrants receive their “green card” and never become full-fledged American citizens- many of them just cannot afford it. Pro-bono legal services will help millions of people who do not have the money to pay a lawyer who will help them navigate the bumpy road to citizenship.

While the Obama Administration is not necessarily saying this new push for citizenship is a partisan effort, it almost certainly is. Karthick Ramakrishnan, a public policy professor at the University of California, explained why:

“Anytime there’s a major push for naturalization by the White House … especially when a Democratic administration does it, there’s always the allegation that this is an attempt to try to get more Democratic voters.”

The Republican Party is terrified of millions of new citizens, because they know that Latinos vote for Democratic candidates in much higher numbers (2-1) than they vote for GOP candidates. The reason Hispanic voters are not fond of the right-wing isn’t that difficult to figure out- just take a look at Donald Trump. However, the New York billionaire isn’t the first member of his party to use immigrants as his personal punching bag, the GOP has been doing it for years; but the rhetoric is especially vile and inflammatory this campaign season and has prompted widespread condemnation and outrage across the country. The easiest way to fight against hate is at the polls and that’s what they are going to do.

Tara Raghuveer, the policy and advocacy director at the National Partnership for New Americans, one of the community partners working with the White House to promote citizenship, said her organization is encouraging people to become citizens “specifically in response to all the hate we’ve been seeing on a national stage about immigration recently.”

She added, “We’re telling people to naturalize now; we’ve had enough of this anti-immigrant rhetoric, and it’s time for us to step up.”

It is unlikely that there will suddenly be more than eight million new voters in time for the next election, but it could have an effect on long-term public policy. Manuel Pastor, director of the University of Southern California’s Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration told NPR that after California passed the anti-immigrant Prop 187 in the 1990s, naturalization rates increased dramatically.

This push for citizenship is an amazing move by President Obama. He is going to help millions of people protect themselves against the vitriolic, anti-immigrant Republican Party, who would love nothing more than to rip millions of families apart. The GOP should be absolutely terrified, in order to win a presidential election they need more than 40 percent of the Latino vote to win; Mitt Romney only received 23 percent and he was far less hateful than Trump. Imagine what would happen if there are 8 million new voters in the next decade, 5.4 million of them Latino? The Republican Party will never see the inside of the White House again.

Watch President Obama’s first “Stand Stronger” initiative video:

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Here’s how a war with Iran would go

Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei released an incendiary video this week, describing the “humiliation” the U.S. would experience if it were to invade Iran. The video reminds the viewer of the protracted American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and of Hezbollah’s perceived “victory” over Israel in 2006.

The video, as inflammatory as it may be, is as meaningful as any propaganda produced by any government; which is to say, it’s dubious at best. Iran has never started a war in the modern era. Its standing orders are to never launch a first strike and the success of the Iranian nuclear deal means we will likely not go to war with Iran anytime soon. That does not keep Iran from trolling the United States more than any country, group, or individual (and we just tend to remember that kind of sh*t talk).

Also, that hostage crisis. Old habits die hard.

Iran is the industrial, military, and economic Shia counterweight to Saudi Arabia, the preeminent Sunni monarchy in the Middle East. Iran considers the Middle East their backyard, sending money, weapons, and supplies to Shia Islamic groups in neighboring countries in an attempt to destabilize or undermine the Sunni (or secular) leadership there. The Islamic Republic is currently projecting power all over the region, well beyond the borders of the old Persian Empire: they assist Houthi rebels in Yemen, fund and supply paramilitary organizations like Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army in Iraq and Hezbollah in Syria and Lebanon as well as others, all fighting Sunni paramilitary organizations funded by members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), such as the al-Nusra Front. These Iranian-funded and Saudi-funded groups both fought U.S. troops during the Iraq War (though likely not side-by-side). The goal is to keep the fighting there, and not in Iran.

Those are the bare basics of the Sunni-Shia religious civil war everyone is always talking about. There are of course other issues in play. This is the Middle East, after all. The promise of military support from United States is one of the pillars of Saudi (and global oil market) security. Israel is the U.S.’ eternal ally. America has made promises in to fight ISIS in the region, alongside (but not with) Iranian-backed Iraqi militias, Syrian rebels, and Sunni-funded al-Qaeda groups. Now the Russians are sending more advisors and weapons to the Asad regime (which is also an Iranian client state). All this means we could be right back to where we started.

This really isn’t that far off.

The nuclear deal also doesn’t rule out a military strike from Israel. Israel has long depended on security and defense guarantees from the United States and is not averse to starting wars with countries it deems a threat to their long-term survival. As an added bonus, Israel already has nuclear weapons. Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu’s coalition government depends on a motley mixture of right-wing political parties and ultra-orthodox Jewish parties, who are convinced Iranian leaders said they want to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth, despite the fact that this phrase is a misquote from a bad translation. And a surprise from Israel is not unheard of.

So what would the United States be up against? Would we be as humiliated as the Supreme Leader’s video suggests? Not likely. Much of Iran’s military hardware predates the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the resulting arms embargo. Because of that embargo, a lot of the Iranian defense industry is homegrown, which means the Iranians are not limited to arms deals with foreign powers. They can build their own tanks, fighters, and subs (more on those later). Anything not built in Iran or coming from Russia is likely aging very poorly. Overall defense spending is relatively (to the worldwide arms industry) miniscule, around $6 billion, especially in comparison to the GCC.

(Keep in mind, U.S. defense spending wouldn’t even fit on the scale above.)

Iran has about a half million troops on active duty, not including the 125,000 in the Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). As the name suggests, the IRGC are the most devoted members of the Iranian military. All Iranian forces take men as young as 18, but the Basij Forces (meaning “Mobilization of the Oppressed”) will take a male as young as 15. The Basij mainly acted as human minesweepers and led human wave attacks to great effect during the Iran-Iraq War.

Yep. Pretty Much.

The Iranian conventional forces have 4 branches: The Islamic Republic of Iran Army (IRIA), Navy (IRIN), Air Force (IRIAF), and Air Defense Force (IRIADF). Iran’s conventional military are considered “severely limited, relying heavily on obsolescent and low quality weaponry.” The IRIA has a large tank force of over 1600 but as with other materiel, it’s aging rapidly. They are able to make their own tanks (the most recent based on the design of the M47M Patton), but not in significant numbers and the U.S. has effective anti-armor tactics.

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BREAKING NEWS: 3 people hurt in Alabama church shooting; suspect arrested

EAST SELMA, Alabama — An Alabama prosecutor says a suspect has been charged with attempted murder after allegedly shooting a woman, an infant and a pastor inside a church in Alabama.

Dallas County District Attorney Michael Jackson says James Minter was arrested after the shooting Sunday at the Oasis Church in East Selma, Alabama. Neither Minter’s age or hometown were immediately available.

Jackson says the shooting stems from a domestic issue between Minter and the woman and that race was not a factor.

Jackson says the pastor is white, while Minter and the two other victims are black. Jackson says Minter is being held without bond at the Dallas County jail.

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Media Blackout as France and Russia Both Announce Monsanto GMO Bans

When two of the most modernized and economically powerful countries in the world decide to ban a type of food crop that has made its way into roughly 70-80% or more of the U.S. food supply, you’d think it would be considered newsworthy.

But the United States media has missed the boat yet again on major happenings relating to GMO crops overseas.

Both Russia and France officially announced bans on Monsanto’s genetically engineered crops this past week, cementing their positions and upholding the will of the people in nations where public opinion is dead set on keeping the food and farming system natural.

“As far as genetically-modified organisms are concerned, we have made decision not to use any GMO in food productions,” Russia’s Deputy PM Arkady Dvorkovich announced at worldwide conference on biotechnology in the Russian city of Kirov according to the website RT.

“This is not a simple issue, we must do very thorough work on division on these spheres and form a legal base on this foundation,” he said. Russia has announced similar plans in the past but the announcement feels even more official considering the wave of GMO bans sweeping Europe these days.

France Plans to “Opt-Out,” Stay GMO Free

Meanwhile France also announced its plans to stay GMO Free by opting exercising its “opt-out” clause through the European Union.

In total, five nations in Europe have announced plans to ban the growth of Monsanto’s GMOs within their borders including Germany, Scotland, Latvia, and Greece.

The crops are allowed to be grown within the European Union but each country has its own ability to opt-out.

As noted in this article from Eco Watch, France’s main concerns stem from the environmental risks created by the crops, which are capable of contaminating non-GMO crops via wind pollination and causing other harm, especially when used with the herbicide, glyphosate, they are designed to withstand.

Monsanto’s MON810 genetically engineered corn, the only crop of its kind allowed in Europe, is a specific threat to natural agriculture in the country because of this concern.

American Media Silent on GMO Bans

A quick Google News search turns up virtually no results for the bans by Russia and France, aside from a few scattered alternative news sites.

With more Americans than ever before learning about GMOs and making their own decisions on whether to include such foods in their diet, and a huge vote looming in the Senate over a possible ban on mandatory GMO labeling in America (click here to learn more and take action), you’d think the news giants like NBC, Fox News, CNN and others would be chomping at the bit to get this news out to their readers and viewers.

But alas, they have chosen not to cover these stories, once again giving the American people an incomplete picture about the ongoing food experiment that they never consented to in the first place.

Nick Meyer writes for March Against Monsanto and the website AltHealthWorks.com.

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Boat capsizes in the East River near Queens; 19 rescued

QUEENS -- Multiple people were rescued after a boat capsized in the East River Sunday afternoon.

The Dragon Boat racing team was on board for their last practice of the season.

They started at the World's Fair Marina and were heading to the Whitestone Bridge when the boat capsized around 1:30 p.m. near College Point Yacht Club in Queens.

Nineteen people were tossed into the water.

"Our boat capsized because the wakes were too big," Franklin Chiu said.

The team of 19 clung to the boat until rescuers arrived. Each member of the team was equipped with a life jacket. They were pulled to safety by first responders and taken to College Point Yacht Club.

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