Tag: TMC News

The saga of the Sochi stray dogs continues.

More information on how all the dogs in Sochi came to be without a home – and it was the Olympics’ fault in the first place. The nightmare continues. Keith explains.

But the dogs are getting their revenge.

The opening ceremonies in Sochi are complete. Great. Now here’s why you shouldn’t watch any more of the LOLympics.

We will continue to report on the games and the plight of the Sochi dogs.

Keith has tweeted:

@KeithOlbermann the Int'l Humane Society has guide for adopting/helping the stray dogs in Sochi. Can you pls retweet? http://t.co/WuW80SMJ5j

— ICONYC Promotions (@IconycPromo) February 8, 2014

You can find out how to adopt a Sochi Street Dog at the Humane Society International.

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

Investigative journalist ( yes, journalist) and proprietress of emptywheel, Marcy Wheeler announced the she is joining Glenn Greenwald at First Look the new on-line magazine venture by billionaire Pierre Omidyar.

I’ve got some exciting new beginnings – and some continuity – to announce.

As Pierre Omidyar and Eric Bates just announced, I will be joining First Look Media as part of a new magazine that will publish Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, Jeremy Scahill, and others’ work. It’s really exciting to join Glenn and others in their work, and to join the larger First Look effort as it launches.

But that opportunity won’t change much here. I am just working for First Look as a consultant – just doing document analysis, not my own reporting – and just part time. I will continue to do the kind of reporting I always do here – and potentially for other media outlets.

Here are some Tweets from Glenn welcoming Marcy and announcing the launch of First Look early next week.

Working with the brilliant @emptywheel – on NSA documents no less – is basically a dream.

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) February 6, 2014

Super-excited! First Look Media publishes its first digital magazine – to launch early next week https://t.co/gBriEoQtib

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) February 6, 2014

We congratulate Marcy on new job and look forward to reading her analysis.

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN):

“It is ludicrous, absurd, crazy to have marijuana at same level as heroin. Ask the late Philip Seymour Hoffman if you could. Nobody dies from marijuana. People die from heroin.”

“Every second that we spend in this country trying to enforce marijuana laws is a second that we’re not enforcing heroin laws. And heroin and meth are the two drugs that are ravaging our country,”

“And every death, including Mr. Hoffman’s, is partly the responsibility of the federal government’s drug priorities for not putting total emphasis on the drugs that kill, that cause people to be addicted and have to steal to support their habit.”

“When we put marijuana on the same level as heroin and crack and LSD and meth and crack and cocaine, we are telling young people not to listen to adults about the ravages and problems, and they don’t listen because they know you’re wrong.”

“You can’t name one person who’s died from a overdose of marijuana can you?”

Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) tore into deputy drug czar Michael Botticelli on Tuesday, highlighting federal drug policy’s failure to address the substances “ravaging our country” while still considering marijuana to be as dangerous as heroin.

Speaking during a hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform focused on the Obama administration’s marijuana policy, Cohen urged drug policy officials to rethink marijuana’s classification as a Schedule 1 substance, which the Drug Enforcement Administration considers “the most dangerous class of drugs.” Other Schedule 1 substances include heroin, LSD and ecstasy, while methamphetamine and cocaine fall under the Schedule II definition.

It is time to refocus and admit that the war on drugs has been lost.

This will break your heart

Racing to Save the Stray Dogs of Sochi

By David M. Herszenhorn, The New York Times

SOCHI, Russia – A dog shelter backed by a Russian billionaire is engaged in a frantic last-ditch effort to save hundreds of strays facing a death sentence before the Winter Olympics begin here. [..]

“We were told, ‘Either you take all the dogs from the Olympic Village or we will shoot them,’ ” said Olga Melnikova, who is coordinating the rescue effort on behalf of a charity called Good Will, which is financed by Oleg V. Deripaska, one of Russia’s billionaire oligarchs.

“On Monday we were told we have until Thursday,” Ms. Melnikova said.

A “dog rescue” golf cart is now scouring the Olympic campus, picking up the animals and delivering them to the shelter, which is really an outdoor shantytown of doghouses on a hill on the outskirts of the city. It is being called PovoDog, a play on the Russian word povodok, which means leash. [..]

Mr. Deripaska, an industrialist who largely made his fortune in aluminum, provided $15,000 to get the shelter started on land donated by the local government. He has also pledged about $50,000 a year for operations. He was also one of the major investors in the Sochi Games and paid for several huge projects, including an overhaul of the airport, a new seaport and the Olympic Village along the coast.

With the Olympics fast approaching, however, there was simply no time to build an indoor space for the shelter, especially because so much work remained to be done on hotels and other buildings for the Games. [..]

All of the dogs entering the shelter receive medical treatment, including vaccinations. All of them will be eligible for adoption, even to fans attending the Olympics. Spared execution – at least for the moment – the animals at the PovoDog shelter barked in a loud chorus as the sun slowly dropped into the Black Sea, which could be viewed in the distance.

According to the article, this is tarnishing the warm and cuddly image of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

In the tragic wake of the death of Academy Award winning actor Philip Seymour Hoffman from an apparent drug overdose this weekend, has put the ugly fact that heroin addiction is the US is on the rise and crosses all social and economic boundaries. Drug overdoses now kill more people than auto accidents with 105 deaths everyday. In the last ten years, heron use has more than doubled and overdoses from prescribed opiate pain killer has gone through the roof.

MSNBC’s “All In” host Chris Hayes took a look at the rise of heroin use in the United States with his guest neuroscientist and associate professor of psychology at Columbia University, Dr. Carl Hart, who specializes in studying the effect of drugs on the populace.

Three Policies That Can Save Other Drug Users From Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Fate

by Nicole Flatow, Think Progress

As public discussion over the failed War on Drugs has escalated and politicians mull marijuana and sentencing reforms, one part of the vision is to redirect enforcement resources toward education, treatment, and other health-oriented programs that help those struggling with addiction. But for those entrenched in addiction, there are low-hanging fruit solutions passed into law in a minority of states that directly tackle the problem of stopping preventable overdose deaths.

Shielding ‘Good Samaritans’ From Prosecution

Last year, Vermont became at least the 13th state in addition to the District of Columbia to pass a law incentivizing witnesses to call 911, by explicitly providing legal protection to those witnesses who call the police for help. [..]

Anti-Overdose Drugs

In many states, pharmacists and other health care professionals face criminal and civil liability for distributing naloxone to third parties – even police officers – who can administer it in an emergency situation. The drug has been described as a “miracle drug,” because it knocks opiates off receptors that make a user stop breathing, without any other known side effects. [..]

Laws are now emerging in some states to provide immunity to those professionals and laypeople, while other programs are equipping police officers with both training and kits to administer when they report to the scene. In 2012, then-White House Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske for the first time endorsed broader distribution of naloxone. [..]

Treating The Addiction

Hoffman’s state of New York happens to be one that already has a Good Samaritan law, and just last week state lawmakers introduced another measure to expand the availability of naloxone. But neither of these solutions work for those like Hoffman who may have overdosed alone, since individuals in the midst of an overdose can’t self-administer or call 911. For that population, Clear believes the greatest tool is increased prescription of addiction treatment drugs like buprenorphine that mimic some qualities of opioids with more limited harms. Some approved U.S. doctors are permitted to prescribe these drugs to treat opioid addiction (users can take them for a less harmful high), but (Allan) Clear told ThinkProgress even those who have been through treatment should be prescribed the drug more often, recognizing the prevalence of relapse. In France, where all doctors have since 1995 been authorized to prescribe the addiction treatment, opiate overdose deaths decreased 79 percent between 1995 and 2004, according to one study.

Hoffman and the Terrible Heroin Deaths in the Shadows

by Jeff Deeney, The Atlantic

Addiction and mortality related to heroin and other narcotics in the U.S. has been steadily on the rise for years. Should it be easier for addicts to inject as safely as possible?

Now that Hoffman is gone the one purpose his passing can offer is to bring into sharp focus the fact that overdose deaths have long been on the rise in the U.S. (according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, deaths from drug overdoses increased by 102 percent between 1999 and 2010), and to more vigorously continue the discussion about what to do about it. [..]

More people are using heroin, according to a 2012 Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration survey. The survey found that between 2007 and 2012, the number of heroin users ages 12 and up increased from 373,000 to 669,000. [..]

U.S. drug policies are shifting. Slowly, and not enough, but there is progress. Mandatory minimums are being phased out. Treatment is increasingly available to those caught up in the criminal justice system. As the Affordable Care Act begins to take effect, treatment will become more broadly funded, especially for the poor. There is concern among public health professionals, myself included, that the policy shift will fall short of what we need to change conditions for injecting drug users.

Legal pot isn’t enough. For there to be an American version of Insite, Vancouver’s celebrated, medically-supervised, legal injecting space, the U.S. would need to decriminalize entirely. If Philip Seymour Hoffman had taken his last bags to a legal injecting space, would he still be alive? Had he overdosed there, medical staff on call might have reversed it with Naloxone. Had he acquired an abscess or other skin infection, he could have sought nonjudgmental medical intervention. Perhaps injection site staff could have directed him back to treatment.

Safe injecting sites are an amazing, life saving, humanity restoring intervention we can’t have because our laws preclude them. Too frequently, heroin addicts instead utilize abandoned buildings and vacant lots to shoot up in order to evade arrest. The risk for assault, particularly sexual assault for women, in off-the-grid, hidden get-high places is incredible. Overdosed bodies are routinely pulled from such spaces in North Philadelphia. [..]

Those of us in recovery need to remain vigilant in maintaining our mental health. There is much work to be done on America’s addiction problem. It involves ensuring effective treatment, expanding the science of the field, and making sure that those who are actively using can do so in a way that is safe and dignified. There is a way to make meaning from the otherwise senseless early death of Philip Seymour Hoffman, and that is to let it refocus our efforts on making sure the smallest number of people possible find the same fate.

Phil Hoffman’s death was a shock to his, family, his friends and his many fans. May this terrible loss bring attention to much needed reform of drug policies and laws, as well as, a change in attitude in how we approach drug addiction in the US. If in death Phillip saves one life, he will not have died in vain.

Steve Kornacki’s guests share the things they learned this week.

Share with us what you have learned this week.

In a multi-part series, the host of Moyers and Company, Bill Moyers and the popular astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson discussed the universe, higher beings and science literacy.

Pete Seeger, Songwriter and Champion of Folk Music, Dies at 94

Pete Seeger, the singer, folk-song collector and songwriter who spearheaded an American folk revival and spent a long career championing folk music as both a vital heritage and a catalyst for social change, died Monday. He was 94 and lived in Beacon, N.Y.

His death was confirmed by his grandson, Kitama Cahill Jackson, who said he died of natural causes at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital.

Mr. Seeger’s career carried him from singing at labor rallies to the Top 10 to college auditoriums to folk festivals, and from a conviction for contempt of Congress (after defying the House Un-American Activities Committee in the 1950s) to performing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial at an inaugural concert for Barack Obama.

For Mr. Seeger, folk music and a sense of community were inseparable, and where he saw a community, he saw the possibility of political action. [..]

Mr. Seeger’s wife, Toshi, died in 2013, days before the couple’s 70th anniversary. Survivors include his son, Daniel; his daughters, Mika and Tinya; a half-sister, Peggy; and six grandchildren, including the musician Tao Rodriguez-Seeger, who performed with him at the Obama inaugural. His half-brother Mike Seeger, a folklorist and performer who founded the New Lost City Ramblers, died in 2009.

Let the dream live. Blessed be.

Host of MSNBC’s “Up.” Steve Kornacki discusses what we have learned this week with his guest.

Tell us what you have learned this week.

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

Nearly two weeks ago a chemical spill at a storage facility for Freedom Industries contaminated the water supply of over 300,000 West Virginians with  4-Methylcyclohexane Methanol which is used to “treat” coal supplies before they are shipped for burning. The plant is located just two miles up river from a water treatment plant. People were warned to not drink the water, but not before it sickened hundreds flooding emergency rooms complaining of nausea, vomiting, some dizziness, headaches, diarrhoea, reddening skin, itches and rashes,

The water has been declared safe, but the CDC has issued a warning to pregnant women to not drink the water. Now to protect themselves from liability, the Freedom Industries filed for bankruptcy on Friday. However, as Raw Story calls it, this is just a legal shell game

And in a brazen legal gambit, the owner of Freedom Industries has also created a shell company to provide financing to his bankrupt firm, which may allow him to retain much of the assets of the firm if and when it is dissolved in bankruptcy. [..]

The name of the owner of Freedom Industries, J. Clifford Forrest, also appears as an officer in a newly-formed firm – Mountaineer Funding LLC – which Freedom Industries named as the source of debtor-in-possession financing of up to $5 million. In a bankruptcy, the debtor in possession financier is typically placed at the head of the line of creditors making a claim on the assets of the firm. If a bankruptcy judge allows the financing to go forward, Mountaineer – and Forrest – might be expected to scoop up most of the assets of the bankrupt firm without any legal liability for the catastrophic environmental damages wrought by it.

MSNBC’s “All In” host Chris Hayes laid out just how this works for the owner and screws the citizens who suffered damages

MSNBC”S “Up” host Steve Kornacki and his guests share what they have learned this week.

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

The bill to fast track the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement was introduced last week

House Ways and Means Committee Chair Dave Camp (R) and top Senate Finance Committee members Max Baucus (D) and Orrin Hatch (R) on Thursday unveiled the Trade Priorities Act of 2014 that would require a simple up-or-down vote on major trade deals without the opportunity to offer amendments to pertinent bills. [..]

The Obama administration is seeking the heightened authority in trade deals, allowing the Executive Branch to smooth congressional negotiations on accords. The two major deals, both long in the works, that are likely to be subject to such legislation are the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the 28-nation pact with the European Union, the Trans-Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (TAFTA). The deals would establish the world’s largest so-called free-trade zones.

The US is also working on a services-trade accord with a group of nations that would encompass half of the global economy. [..]

The bill has been negotiated in secret and other than some leaked passages by WikiLeaks, only the negotiators and insider corporations have seen the full proposal which is nearing completion. There is push back in the House of Representatives that may scuttle the president’s plan to push this agreement without any debate or amendments

Late last year, 151 House Democrats signed a letter opposing the so-called fast track scheme, also known as trade promotion authority. Several House Republicans oppose fast track on the grounds that it excessively empowers the executive branch, but many others, including Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), support the proposal.

“Obama wants to pass it; Democrats in the House want to oppose it,” said one House Democratic aide, who was granted anonymity due to the sensitivity of the Democratic position. “Republicans are split ideologically, and want to know why they should take one for Obama.”

Nevertheless, Boehner said at a Thursday press conference that he cannot pass the bill without Democratic help. [..]

Many House Democrats are flatly opposed to the TPP and efforts to ease its passage. House Democrats are often more responsive to liberal interest groups than their Senate counterparts, and many members — including some in the Democratic Party leadership — believe that opposing TPP is good for electoral politics in 2014. While supporters of the deal argue it will increase economic growth, similar recent trade deals have undercut some U.S. industries and weakened global labor protections.

“The president has failed to find someone who is willing to introduce the bill. He’s got over 200 members to cultivate from, some of whom would like to have his support in the next election. But Democratic members are extremely skeptical of this,” Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) told HuffPost.

“We’ve tried free trade, and not only has free trade not improved the U.S. economy, it’s gutted manufacturing and driven down our labor standards,” he added, citing NAFTA as a prime example. [..]

Progressive groups came out strongly against the trade promotion authority, suggesting that approving it and the underlying trade deal would undercut efforts to curtail income inequality.

“The Trans-Pacific Partnership would be an unmitigated disaster for everything from the environment to Internet freedom and working families,” said Charles Chamberlain, the executive director of Democracy For America, a grassroots progressive organization, which intends to make trade an election-year issue.

In an interview with Huffington Post, political theorist and linguist Noam Chomsky slammed the agreement as a “neo-liberal assault”

(T)he deal, which is not yet finalized, is “designed to carry forward the neoliberal project to maximize profit and domination, and to set the working people in the world in competition with one another so as to lower wages to increase insecurity.”

Chomsky said it was “a joke” that the deal is designated a “free trade” agreement. “It’s called free trade, but that’s just a joke,” Chomsky said. “These are extreme, highly protectionist measures designed to undermine freedom of trade. In fact, much of what’s leaked about the TPP indicates that it’s not about trade at all, it’s about investor rights.”

The MIT professor also slammed the veil of secrecy that has surrounded TPP negotiations. [..]

As Chomsky noted:

“It’s very hard to make anything of the TPP because it’s been kept very secret. A half-secret, I should say. It’s not secret from the hundreds of corporate lawyers and lobbyists who are writing the legislation. To them, it’s perfectly public. They’re, in fact, writing it. It’s being kept secret from the population. Which of course raises obvious questions.”

If you haven’t done it need to tell our representatives to stop the “fast track” of the TPP. Even if you have do it again. Don’t Let Congress Fast-Track TPP.