Thursday Open Thread

Welcome to your daily open thread. Lots going on today, including plenty of whining by the GOP about their meeting yesterday with President Obama. But then, you can’t count your day as complete without those guys whinging about something.

Another victorious battle in the GOP War on Women — the HHS has told Indiana that their effort to defund Planned Parenthood clinics is illegal:

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Donald Berwick denied a request to approve a state amendment that would prohibit Medicaid funds from reaching hospitals and clinics, such as Planned Parenthood, that offer abortion services.

Berwick said law stipulates that Medicaid cannot exclude providers based on what services they provide.

“Medicaid programs may not exclude qualified health care providers from providing services that are funded under the program because of a provider’s scope of practice,” Berwick wrote. “We assume this decision is not unexpected.”

He also said the Indiana amendment would restrict beneficiaries’ access to family planning care, which is protected under the law.

Good on the Obama Administration for taking a firm stand on this.

The Global Commission on Drug Policy notes that the War on Drugs is a FAILURE:

“The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world,” the report reads. “Fifty years after the initiation of the UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, and 40 years after President Nixon launched the US government’s war on drugs, fundamental reforms in national and global drug control policies are urgently needed.”[…]

The report calls for an end to the “criminalization, marginalization and stigmatization of people who use drugs but who do no harm to others,” and for governments to experiment with ways to regulate drugs so as to undercut organized crime and improve public health.

“Begin the transformation of the global drug prohibition regime,” the report says. “Replace drug policies and strategies driven by ideology and political convenience with fiscally responsible policies and strategies grounded in science, health, security and human rights – and adopt appropriate criteria for their evaluation.”

Amen. I wonder if this War on Drugs isn’t a bigger waste of money than the last few wars combined.

For fun, here’s a list of Kids’ Books to Read after Your Kids Go to Bed. I think that my Dad could have written the Go The F*** To Sleep one.

So drop us some links of what interests you today.