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But the U.S. government won’t let scientists try out this promising treatment on humans. On a warm summer day in Chicago at the International Cannabinoid Research Conference, hundreds of marijuana researchers were giggling. It wasn’t the groundbreaking research they’d just heard—proving the ability of THC, one of the active ingredients in marijuana, to stave off HIV (or RIV in monkeys)—that did it. Nor was it the author of the study, Dr. Patricia E. Molina, who had them laughing. It was the rogue researcher daring enough to taint the victory with a harsh dose of reality: “What’s next, testing this on...

Do you know the old joke about the politician who sees a mob of people marching down and street and cries: “There go my people! I must find out where they are going so I can lead them!” I’m put in mind of it by the news that the Republican Party is super-keen now to figure out ways to help the middle class. The Democrats have begun embracing economic populism. Polls show strong public support for many of the ideas that make up this populism. The people are marching. And now the party that’s been the enemy of the middle...

As a Republican hoping that my party will retake the White House in 2016, I watched with intense interest as New Jersey Governor Chris Christie talked and talked and talked his way out of ”Bridgegate.” ....................................................... But what I am referring to is the Herculean task set before Christie of winning the 2016 Republican nomination given that the conservative wing and primary-controlling base voters are ferociously anti-Christie for numerous political and policy reasons, among them Medicaid expansion and gun control just for starters.

There isn't a majority that opposes the Affordable Care Act because it's too liberal, in fact, a good number of Americans don't think it's liberal enough. Today’s CNN poll (PDF) on the Affordable Care Act seems like a blow to supporters of the law. When asked if they “generally favor or generally oppose” the president’s health care overhaul, only 35 percent say they “favor.” The large majority—65 percent—say they “oppose.” For Republicans who have staked their entire message on opposition to Obamacare, this looks like vindication. Not only was the rollout a disaster, but now, the public has turned decisively...

No wonder Mary Poppins needed a spoonful of sugar. The forthcoming Saving Mr. Banks is a dark film that tells the heart-breaking true story behind one of the great characters in children’s movie history. P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson), the nanny’s formidable creator, is pitted against Walt Disney (Tom Hanks), who promised his daughters that he’d bring Poppins to the big screen. The thing is, that pledge goes against the author’s wishes. Saving Mr. Banks goes behind the scenes of the ferocious battle to make what was to become the famous 1964 musical adaptation. For 20 years, Travers refused to grant...

For the guy who finished third in the Virginia governor’s race, Robert Sarvis had a pretty good night on Tuesday. Sarvis was the Libertarian candidate in the election who pulled in just over 6.5% of the vote. This wasn’t just a landmark achievement for a third party candidate in Virginia but in the entire American South. --------------------------------------------------------------------snip------------------------------------------- Based on the exit polls, the average Sarvis voter was a younger, well-educated, pro-choice white who did not identify with either political party. In particular, Sarvis did well in suburban Richmond and in the Shenandoah Valley. Sarvis’s weakest areas were in coal country...

Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) president Grover Norquist has now turned to left-wing media to continue his smear campaign against Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), a first-year senator already emerging as a leader of the Republican Party.“I have never had a criticism of Ted Cruz’s strategy because I’ve never been able to find it,” Norquist said Monday night on Sirius XM’s Standup with Pete Dominick, according to a report in The Daily Beast. Dominick is a reliably progressive radio host who hosts his show on the liberal POTUS network on Sirius XM. The Daily Beast is similarly liberal, having dropped notions...

The Republicans are desperately losing the government shutdown battle and they’re embarrassing themselves by continuing to fight. It begs many questions, but most importantly, why does the GOP continue to fight a battle with no clear goal at the expense of not just their party, but the fate of then entire U.S. government? Maybe it’s because they’re actually winning. Though the media has largely painted the GOP as the reckless, kamikaze caucus, Peter Beinart argues in a column for The Daily Beast that Republicans are not only in perfect control of the government shutdown fight, but that they’ll win in...

After a remarkable day for diplomacy, it was time to deal with the hardliners at home. Eleanor Clift on the president’s dangerous standoff with his domestic ideologues. The contrast could not have been greater between a pair of diplomatic breakthroughs and the intransigence of Congress. Appearing in the White House briefing room Friday afternoon, President Obama said he had just spoken with Iranian President Rouhani, everything was on track for the nuclear issue, and the U.N. Security Council had reached a resolution that would ban Syria’s chemical weapons. Who could have imagined that negotiating with the Iranians and the Russians...

Thirteen people are dead at the Washington Navy Yard. It’s not too soon to talk about gun control again. It’s all happened before. It will certainly happen again. And after the recall vote in Colorado on September 10, it seems more certain than ever that nothing will be done to prevent it. “It” is mass-casualty shootings, such as the one that just occurred in the Washington Navy Yard. This historic facility now joins the long roll of place names indelibly associated with massacre and grief: Columbine, Virginia Tech, Newtown. I write on the day of the killing. Gun enthusiasts say...

“HERE’S A fascinating story,” the longtime host of NBC’s Tonight Show With Jay Leno told his audience last week, mentioning a recent Iowa Supreme Court ruling “that a dentist could legally fire his female assistant because he found her too sexy, too attractive, and a threat to his marriage. She didn’t do anything. She’s just good-looking.” The payoff: “Hey, I’ll bet that’s what happened to me here at NBC!”

I knew going into my 30-day experiment of living with a gun that I was putting my family and myself at risk. Only two days into my experiment I went to breakfast with my two kids and some friends. After eating and shopping, my gun with me the entire time, I was anxious to get home to enjoy the warm weather. I put my purse on the counter and then spent the next hour out on the back deck. Walking into the kitchen to refresh our drinks, I noticed my purse with the 9mm Glock still inside it. I’d forgotten...

Last week, in Chicago, 16-year-old Darryl Green was found dead in the yard of an abandoned home. He was killed, relatives reported, because he refused to join a gang. Unlike most tragedies, however—which remain local news—this one caught the attention of conservative activist Ben Shapiro, an editor for Breitbart News. Using the hashtag “#justicefordarryl,” Shaprio tweeted and publicized the details of Green’s murder. But this wasn’t a call for help and assistance for Green’s family, rather, it was his response to wide outrage over Saturday’s decision in the case of George Zimmerman, where a Florida jury judged him “not guilty”...

Wednesday, May 29, 2013 Death of a Naked Liberal Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog 0 Comments In 2010, Newsweek was sold for a dollar and it has been devalued since. Its corporate owners have called buying it a mistake and a fool's errand. Around the same time last year, Newsweek marked a major milestone. The loss of 2.5 million readers in ten years. Since then it lost another million leaving it with about the reading population of a small city. Meanwhile MSNBC isn't doing any better. It lost a fifth of its viewers since last year...

Barry Diller, the chairman of Newsweek parent company IAC, stated Monday that he didn’t have “great expectations” for the future of the Daily Beast and Newsweek in their new digital-only format. … (Diller) is far from optimistic about the future of the fledgling operation. “I don’t have great expectations”, (he) revealed. “I wish I hadn’t bought Newsweek. It was a mistake.” …

She’s baaaack. Sarah Palin attempted to relaunch her political career and her political action committee, SarahPAC, on Thursday with a Web video called “Loaded for Bear,” which presented the former Alaska governor as the new kingmaker for conservative populists in the GOP. The video riffed off her speech at CPAC, in which Palin railed against “the big consultants, the big money men, and the big bad media.” But there’s an irony alert ahead: the current stated purpose of SarahPAC is to raise money ahead of the 2014 election—most of which will be spent on conservative consultants. Don't believe me? Well,...

Matters look bleak indeed when 50 senators vote for a measure requiring that any bill changing gun laws get a two-thirds majority. Nothing else, not taxes, not anything (except some internal Senate rules), requires a two-thirds vote. That 50 senators voted this way—including six Democrats—shows what a collection of cowards and lickspittles these people are on the issue. If the NRA said gun bills should only be passed after sundown on Tuesdays between Columbus Day and the Ascension of Abdul Baha, they’d rush in with amendments stipulating that it also had to be raining. And yet, there is still a...

Newsweek stopped its print edition at the end of 2012, but they still tried to scandalize the country by producing a fake cover honoring Obama's second inauguration as "The Second Coming." This absurd attempt at myth making is a natural progression. The "cover" story was written by Evan Thomas, who proclaimed on MSNBC a few years ago that Obama was "sort of like God" in being above the gritty political fray. It was just as absurd when Newsweek writer David Frum, the formerly conservative Bush speechwriter, tweeted this piece of media-elite nonsense: "First term Obama: punchee, 2nd term Obama,...

How did the rest of the media miss this? According to the new issue of Newsweek online, President Obama, who this weekend begins his second term--the third president in a row to do so--is "The Second Coming." With flattering photographs, the magazine edited by Obama fan Tina Brown holds out hope that in his second Inaugural Address, Obama can inspire and show that he can also lead. The conservative media watch dog, Media Research Center, first noticed the God-like cover. "Conservatives have long joked that the national press corps see Barack Obama as the second coming of Jesus Christ. Today,...

Although it is now digital, Newsweek celebrated President Obama's upcoming inauguration with a "cover" that calls the event "the second coming," an apparent reference to the return of Jesus Christ, The Blaze reported Friday. A post at Twitchy called the cover "creepy," while The Blaze described it as "controversial" and “questionable.” The cover highlights an article by former editor Evan Thomas, who once compared Obama to God. “Well, we were the good guys in 1984, it felt that way. It hasn't felt that way in recent years. So Obama’s had, really, a different task We're seen too often as the...