Mexico May Allow Some Cocaine, Heroin Use: "Mexicans would be allowed to possess small amounts of cocaine, heroin, even ecstasy for their personal use under a bill approved by lawmakers that some worry could prove to be a lure to young Americans.

The bill now only needs President Vicente Fox's signature to become law and that does not appear to be an obstacle. His office said that decriminalizing drugs will free up police to focus on major dealers.

'This law gives police and prosecutors better legal tools to combat drug crimes that do so much damage to our youth and children,' said Fox's spokesman, Ruben Aguilar."

(Via Washington Post.)

First officer is charged in Abu Ghraib scandal | Salon.com News: "The Army announced Friday that for the first time an officer, Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan, will face criminal charges because of the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

The Army contends that Jordan, who headed the interrogation center at the prison, 'did oppress Iraqi detainees ... by subjecting them to forced nudity and intimidation by military working dogs.' Jordan is also accused of repeatedly lying to investigators during two separate probes into Abu Ghraib and failing to obey the orders of Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, about the proper use of military dogs."

(Via Salon.)

Not Larry Sabato: MORAN TO BE ARRESTED TOMORROW: "To put direct pressure on the Sudanese Government for the atrocities in Darfur, Congressman Moran and several other Members and community leaders will stage a direct action at the embassy of Sudan ultimately resulting in their arrest tomorrow Friday April 28th. According to reports by the United Nations, 3.5 million people are now hungry, 2.5 million have been displaced due to violence, and 400,000 people have died in Darfur."

That's Virginia Democrat Jim Moran.

(Via Young Democrats @ Virginia Tech.)

Salon.com | News Wires: "Ten states fired a new legal salvo at the federal government Thursday in a long-running court battle over global warming and pollution from power plants.

The states, joined by environmental groups, sued the Environmental Protection Agency over its decision not to regulate carbon dioxide pollution as a contributor to global warming.

New York, California, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin filed the lawsuit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

The states, led by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, want the government to require tighter pollution controls on the newest generation of power plants."

(Via Salon.)

Iran Gets First North Korean-Made Missiles: "Iran has received its first batch of North Korean-made surface-to-surface missiles that put European countries within firing range, Israel's military intelligence chief said in an interview published Thursday.

The BM-25 missiles have a range of 1,550 miles and are capable of carrying nuclear warheads, the Haaretz daily reported.

The report came as U.N. members consider slapping sanctions on Iran for refusing to halt its uranium enrichment. The United States, Israel and other Western countries say Iran is trying to get nuclear arms, but the Islamic regime says its atomic program is for civilian purposes only."

(Via Salon.)

AlterNet: Impeaching Bush, State by State: "Forget bird flu, impeachment is spreading across the nation, state by state.

On Tuesday afternoon, Rep. Dave Zuckerman (Prog.-VT) dropped the third of three nearly unreported bombshells on the Bush administration. Zuckerman, along with 12 fellow lawmakers, introduced a formal resolution for the Vermont state legislature to call on the U.S. House of Representatives to impeach President George W. Bush.

With this resolution, Vermont joined the California and Illinois state legislatures, already embroiled in impeachment debates of their own.

...

The legal basis for these unprecedented state-level actions was discovered when, according to Steven Leser, Illinois Rep. Karen A. Yarbrough 'stumbled on a little known and never utlitized rule of the U.S. House of Representatives.' The rule was written in a book formerly known as Jefferson's Manual, which, according to C-SPAN, 'is a book of rules of procedure and parliamentary philosophy … written by Thomas Jefferson in 1801 … [used by the House] as a supplement to its standing rules.' Section LIII, sec. 603 states, 'There are various methods of setting an impeachment in motion … [one of them is] by charges transmitted from the legislature of a State …'"

(Via AlterNet.)

Salon.com | News Wires: "A congresswoman's son and three Democratic campaign workers were sentenced Wednesday to four to six months in jail for slashing tires outside a Bush-Cheney campaign office on Election Day 2004."

(Via Salon.)

Crooks and Liars: "Now that Mary McCarthy has 'categorically denied' disclosing classified information on Bush's secret prisons, the political debate shifts a bit. Instead of assuming that McCarthy was responsible for leaks, we now have to wonder why, exactly, CIA Director Porter Goss sacked a veteran intelligence analyst. It's too soon to say with any certainty whether Goss, who personally oversaw the investigation into this leak, was driven by partisan motivations, but there's reason to believe the director of central intelligence was not acting on principle. After all, McCarthy was a Democrat and hold-over from the Clinton years -- and Goss is a former House Republican who has tried to purge top-ranking CIA officials of anyone who wasn't loyal to Bush."

(Via Crooks and Liars.)

AlterNet: Bush's Imperial Presidency: "The Bush administration has pushed hard for limitless powers to spy on, imprison and torture American citizens in the name of 'security.' Is this really what America stands for?"

(Via AlterNet.)

Guardian Unlimited | World Latest | Bush Eases Environmental Rules on Gasoline: "Under election-year pressure to reduce surging gasoline prices, President Bush on Tuesday halted filling of the nation's emergency oil reserve, urged the waiver of clean air rules to ease local gas shortages and called for the repeal of $2 billion in tax breaks for profit-heavy oil companies.

Still, experts said Bush's actions wouldn't have much impact on prices at the pump. The president warned that motorists would have to dig deep into their pockets all summer long."

(Via Google News.)

An “F” for Missile Defense:  How seven government reports in two months illustrate the need for missile defense to change its ways: "The multi-faceted missile defense program, currently the Pentagon’s golden child, has effectively avoided any and all tough questions.  Over $92 billion has been spent on missile defense systems since the Ronald Reagan administration, to little avail.  While the architecture still has not been finalized, the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency (MDA) envisions a system of systems, including ground-, sea-, and air-based interceptor weapons supported by a satellite system and new X-band radars for missile tracking, and a high-speed computer-based command and control system to link all the pieces together.  Unfortunately, the interceptor programs have to yet to prove that they are ready for actual operations, the satellite project is severely over budget and behind schedule, the X-band radars are not yet fully deployed, and the computer network to control the mega-system has been found to have faulty security making it vulnerable to hacking."

(Via a DefenseTech.)

Take Action: Stop Fake "Clinics" from Deceiving Women: "So-called 'crisis pregnancy centers' are proliferating across the nation — a deceitful new tactic of the anti-choice movement to keep women from getting the accurate education and health services they seek.

These fake 'clinics' often masquerade as health centers offering the full range of reproductive health services, when their only real purpose is to keep women from exercising their right to choice and family planning. "

(Via Planned Parenthood.)

AlterNet: Rights and Liberties: Democracy Behind Bars: "Today, nearly 5 million Americans are disfranchised from the right to vote either because they are in prison, on parole or probation, or because they live in a state that extends disfranchisement beyond the end of one's sentence. Racial, ethnic and economic disparities in the criminal justice system, and the 'war on drugs' have resulted in the most severe impact hitting communities of color. Where African-Americans comprise only 12.2 percent of the population and 13 percent of drug users, they make up 38 percent of those arrested for drug offenses and 59 percent of those convicted of drug offenses, causing critics to call the war on drugs the 'New Jim Crow.' Nationally, an estimated 13 percent of African-American men are unable to vote because of a felony conviction. That's seven times the national average."

(Via AlterNet.)

Salon.com | News Wires: "Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice dismissed new threats from Iran over the future of its disputed nuclear program on Tuesday, but won no public pledge of support from ally Greece for punitive sanctions against Tehran.

Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, said Tuesday that Iran will withdraw its cooperation from the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency if faced with U.N. sanctions and will be forced to hide its nuclear program if the West takes 'harsh measures' against it.

The statements were Iran's strongest statement of defiance yet before a Friday deadline the Security Council has given the country to stop all uranium enrichment."

(Via Salon.)

World Bank Failed in Fight Against Malaria, Health Experts Say - New York Times: "The World Bank failed to follow through on its pledges to spend up to $500 million to combat malaria, let its staff working on the disease shrink to zero, used false statistical data to claim success and wasted money on ineffective medicines, according to a group of public health experts writing in the British medical journal The Lancet.

The experts, in an article to be published online today, argue that the bank should relinquish the money it has to fight malaria, which kills an African child every 30 seconds, and instead let the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria distribute the bank's malaria funds."

(Via Google News.)

UnNews:John Kerry Debating Himself On Whether To Run In 2008 - Uncyclopedia: "Incumbent President George Bush is also contemplating running for a third term. He says the current constitutional term limit can easily be ignored, 'Just like I ignored the entire first amendment,' he claims. Critics voiced concerns, but quickly retreated when Vice President Dick Cheney reached for his rifle."

(Via Uncyclopedia.)