Not sure if you totally understand this whole debt ceiling debacle? Not to worry. We weren’t sure either. Luckily, you can get up to speed in less than four minutes with this quick primer.

"I would like to have a mother, but I wouldn't want to lose my two dads," says Frida, a radiant six-year-old Canadian girl unaware of the international controversy raging over gay parenting rights.In Britain and France the debate over gay marriage and parenting has provoked heated debate. But in Canada, a nation born out of their new world colonies, Frida's situation is no longer very unusual.A gay couple in their 40s adopted Frida when she just a baby.Cheerful and vivacious she runs wild in the Montreal home of Laurent Demers and his partner Steven LeBlanc, burning off energy before bedtime under the watchful gaze of her doting fathers.Britain voted on Tuesday to become the 11th country to allow gay couples to marry -- but the reform divided Prime Minister David Cameron's ruling Conservatives and must go before the upper chamber before becoming law.In France, where the issue has sparked impassioned protests, that National Assembly approved homosexual marriage and adoption only last month.Canadian gays and lesbians have been tying the knot since June 2005, when a series of court decisions forced Ottawa to legalize gay nuptials on the basis that denying gay couples the right to marry was discriminatory.Since 2002 Canada's Quebec province has also allowed gay and lesbian couples to adopt children."We were the 16th gay couple to adopt a child in Quebec, and the first to be entrusted with a girl," boasts LeBlanc. Frida came home with the couple when she was only two months old, in December 2006.Two years later, she got an adopted baby brother, Jules, who was only four days old when he was added to the family.The adoptions were finalized in short order, in part because the couple were not fussy about who they wanted placed with them to be raised."Adoptive parents often want 'pink babies,' newborns, beautiful and healthy. It's narcissistic," says Michel Carignan who as chief of Montreal's adoption services from 2002 to 2009 oversaw the first adoptions by gay couples."Gay couples, themselves being different, were open to having children who are different, or of other ethnicities, who are older or with special needs due to psychological or health problems," he explained."Because of that, they made faster headway with their applications," he said, adding that he is aware of no evidence that being raised by a gay couple rather than a heterosexual couple has any adverse affect on the child.Today, one in three couples seeking to adopt in Montreal are gay or lesbian, said Louise Dumais, who succeeded Carignan at Montreal's adoption office.Gay and lesbian adoptions have not faced strong opposition in Quebec, where it is widely accepted now as a new societal norm.Most of the couples seeking adoption are gay men.Lesbian couples have mostly turned to artificial insemination to start a family, and since 2010 the province has paid the bill, said Mona Greenbaum, director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered Family Coalition.Her organization has helped 1,300 families.International adoptions are out of the question. No country allows children to be placed with foreign gay couples, says Greenbaum, who is a mother of two boys thanks to insemination at a US clinic.Some couples have access to surrogacy, which is banned in Quebec but not in neighboring Ontario, but this option is costly -- with fees of up to Can$75,000 charged by agencies in Ontario -- and legally complicated.It's not always easier for lesbians. Stephanie Recordon and Florence Lagouarde came to Quebec from France in 2003 in order to have children.After three years of trying they gave up on artificial insemination and turned to in-vitro fertilization. One of Recordon's eggs was implanted in Lagouarde's uterus.On February 10, 2011, Lagouarde was stunned by the positive result of a home pregnancy test.Little Markus was born nine months later. His mothers are now eager to try again for a second child, using this same method.Every gay and lesbian couple interviewed by AFP described their own unique adventures in parenthood.But they all had one thing in common: at hospitals, daycares, schools or elsewhere their non-traditional families were treated just the same as any other.Anna is a blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl with two mothers, Charlotte Semblat and Genevieve Guindon, both sociology professors.Her friends at daycare, the couple says, "accept it as quite normal" although they are sometimes jealous that Anna has both "a mother and a mommy."What does Anna say when asked why she has no father? "That that's the way it is!" she asserts, before turning her attention to two toy chipmunks. "A heterosexual couple," Semblat says, of the animals. Copyright (2013) AFP. All rights reserved.

Consider: Sarah Palin and Dick Morris are out at Fox News, and Scott Brown, the Massachusetts moderate, may be in.

NEW YORK (RNS) Heartened by his inaugural calls for gay marriage and for bold action on climate change, leaders of the Christian left are confident that President Obama will now claim the progressive legacy they believe he craves. While acknowledging disappointment over specifics in president's first term -- worry over the use of drones as a foreign policy tool is a repeated refrain -- progressive Christians say they believe the president's solid re-election in November has emboldened him, and freed him to pursue concrete progressive goals they say always have been in his heart. Still, those goals and the legacy they could produce won't come easy, says Gary Dorrien, an ethicist at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, one of the nation's most prominent liberal Protestant seminaries. "He's got to 'plant a flag' on something," said Dorrien, whose 2012 book, "The Obama Question: A Progressive Perspective," offered a nuanced view of a figure whom Dorrien describes as full of "protean irony and complexity." While Dorrien thinks Obama "punted on third down" on a number of issues during his first term, including major long-range economic reforms and a "public option" health care measure, he believes that Obama is now set to embrace a more progressive agenda. Immigration reform and expanded public investment in infrastructure, clean energy and the environment could be among the benchmarks of a successful second Obama term, he said. Left behind for good, Dorrien believes, is any possibility of breaking the power of the nation's large banks or introducing the health care "public option" -- two things Dorrien thinks Obama could have accomplished early in his first term had he not "settled for less than what he could have gotten." The Rev. Peter Heltzel, who teaches across the street from Union at New York Theological Seminary, shares Dorrien's mix of admiration and caution about the 44th president. "I am proud of President Obama and look forward to working for justice with him the next four years," Heltzel said, one day after penning an op-ed in USA Today in which he bemoaned the "dramatic expansion of the notion of war" during Obama's first term. "Through global counter-terrorism activities and excessive reliance on drones and covert operations, we have normalized the use of violence and desensitized ourselves to the killing," Heltzel wrote. Heltzel praised Obama's renewed push for gun control as an example of "building blocks for becoming the nation of peace that (Martin Luther) King (Jr.) dreamed about." The evocation of King and his vision of peace is an example of a complex dance those on the Christian left have had to perform with the president, a former community organizer and onetime member of one of the most socially liberal Christian denominations in the country, the United Church of Christ. While those on the left feel Obama understands and is sympathetic to their agenda, they also accept the obligation to keep the president's feet to the fire on the issues they care about. Sometimes the mixture of hope and grass-roots pressure has worked, say two Christian leaders who have championed the issues of gay and lesbian rights and the environment, respectively. Recently retired Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson, the first openly gay man to be elected bishop in the worldwide Anglican Communion, said Obama's linking of rights for women, blacks and gays during his inaugural address was a milestone -- and not merely because it was the first time any U.S. president had done so in such a prominent way. "It wasn't just a nice turn of phrase," Robinson said of the president's inaugural evocation of "Seneca Falls and Selma and Stonewall." "I don't think we'd have heard that from a white, middle-class president," Robinson said. "It was really significant because the movements have often been 'silo-ed' into separate constituencies." As for the president's public call for gay equality in his inaugural speech -- another first -- Robinson said grass-roots activism played a role in pushing Obama on the issue, but credit must also be given to the president himself. "He has offered his support for our love," Robinson said, "and that's above and beyond what any other president has done." The Rev. Sally Bingham, president and founder of the San Francisco-based Interfaith Power & Light, a national faith-based campaign focused on climate change, said the president's call to "preserve our planet, commanded to our care by God" was another marriage of grass-roots activism and presidential leadership. "He could not ignore what people are talking about on the ground," she said. Bingham believes the theologically crafted language was a signal to environmental activists and faith-based advocates that the president recognizes the religious dimension of care of the planet -- an affirmation for clergy like Bingham who have embraced the issue for years and are seeing the results pay off in growing support. "That sentence (about 'commanded to our care') was just overwhelmingly positive," Bingham said, adding to a feeling of momentum "that we're finally getting somewhere" on the issue of climate change. Robinson, Bingham and Dorrien all acknowledge the frustration many progressives felt over the president's first term, with Robinson cautioning, "We can't look for a Messiah in a president, especially those of us who are in the Messiah business, and the Messiah is not Barack Obama." Yet all three feel progressives' criticism of the president was sometimes misplaced; Dorrien argues that liberal disillusionment -- particularly acute in 2010 and 2011 -- was misdirected. Obama never claimed to be anything but a "liberal-leaning politician who still acted out of the center, someone who could mediate conflict. That's the kind of politician he is," Dorrien said. Moreover, while the left will have to keep the pressure on Obama, Dorrien argues that the nation's first nonwhite president has faced the toughest and most entrenched opposition of any president. While unafraid to critique the president, Dorrien has never "felt betrayed" by Obama as have other progressives -- most notably the eminent African-American philosopher Cornel West, a colleague of Dorrien's at Union, who at times has harshly criticized the president. In his book, Dorrien writes that Obama's promise as a leader, "is still in play because Obama is singularly gifted, and he has historic accomplishments to his credit to build upon -- achievements that too many progressives and others often fail to acknowledge."

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) is facing more controversy for using a contact list from the Network of Iowa Christian Home Educators, or NICHE, to fundraise during the 2012 Republican presidential primary. The Iowa Republican and NBC News report Bachmann's Iowa campaign manager signed a sworn affidavit on Sept. 4 blaming another staffer for the contact list misuse. NBC News reports: The Sept. 4 affidavit – first reported by the Iowa Republican and obtained Friday by NBC News – was written by Bachmann's Iowa adviser Eric Woolson, and accuses former State Sen. Kent Sorenson of stealing the list from another Bachmann staffer. Sorenson was the campaign’s state chairman at the time. "We took it," Woolson says Sorenson told him. Woolson isn't the first to accuse Sorenson of misusing the contact list. In July 2012, former campaign staffer Barb Heki filed a lawsuit against Bachmann, Sorenson others when she and her husband were removed from the NICHE board of directors after the incident. “The one thing I can tell you is that I have first-hand witnesses to Kent confessing that he stole the database,” Heki said. Bachmann's campaign called the move a "mistake" in Dec. 2011, at the height of the controversy. “When notified by NICHE, the Campaign began working with NICHE to take immediate corrective action to ensure that list was permanently removed from any Campaign records and to pay the fair-market value of the use of the list," Campaign Manager Keith Nahigian said. "The campaign regrets any inconvenience this mistake may have caused and is working to enact additional safeguards to ensure that this does not happen again."

WASHINGTON — Halfway through what has so far been a scandal-stained first term as Washington's mayor, Vincent Gray can't seem to escape the shadow of the predecessor he defeated by a hefty margin two years ago. Gray's performance in office has been steady but not splashy. However, his winning campaign is the subject of a federal investigation that leaves his political future uncertain. So far, three former aides have pleaded guilty to felonies. Meanwhile, former Mayor Adrian Fenty left a tangible legacy, and his accomplishments and shortcomings are still being debated. Fenty got national attention for his commitment to improving the District of Columbia's failing public schools. He went on a construction spree, cutting the ribbon on new school buildings, libraries and recreation centers. And he installed new bicycle lanes all over the city – including on Pennsylvania Avenue between the Capitol and the White House. Fenty's failure to win re-election had less to do with his accomplishments than his style. He was brusque and aloof, alienated many key supporters and was never embraced in poor, predominantly black communities where Gray won by huge margins. Many political insiders still bristle at Fenty's personality. But they agree he got things done. "The initiatives that he sponsored are now driving the agenda," said Johnny Allem, a veteran of many local campaigns and longtime aide to former Mayor Marion Barry who supported Gray in 2010. "He's getting more and more credit for it, and people are not seeing his spots." Two years after Gray took office, the city is in better shape financially, the commercial real estate market is booming, and 1,100 new residents are moving into the district each month. But unlike Fenty, he lacks a defining initiative or issue. Asked what his top priority is, he lists five: fiscal stability, job creation, economic development, public safety and education. Gray declined to compare himself to Fenty, but he said the issues he's taken on are knottier than the priorities of previous city leaders. "People talk about low-hanging fruit. Well, let somebody else pick the low-hanging fruit. We pick the hard problems," Gray said last week. "I'm not going to pick one thing." But for many voters, education – what had been Fenty's signature issue – is the issue that trumps everything. College-educated parents obsess over whether the city's schools are good enough for their children, while parents in low-income communities often feel they have no choice but to send their children to substandard schools. Placement in the city's charter schools is determined via lottery, and not all parents have the resources to find a charter that suits their needs. Emily Coronado, a marketing consultant who lives with her husband in the middle-class Brookland neighborhood, said the neighborhood elementary school is not a viable option for their 3-year-old son because of its poor test scores. For now, their plan is to enter the charter school lottery every year and hope for the best. "A lot of my friends are really stressed out about it," said Coronado, who voted for Gray. "The way I look at it is that if it doesn't work out, we will have to leave or I will have to change my lifestyle." Susan Chun, a 41-year-old federal employee who also lives in Brookland and voted for Fenty, said she's considering moving out of the district in a few years so that she can send her 3-year-old son, Alexander, to public schools. Although she's not sure if she would have committed to staying if Fenty were still mayor, she thought the city and the school system were heading in the right direction under him. She said Gray has been less aggressive about education reform. "I'd probably be more optimistic and positive about by the time Alexander hit second grade, that there'd be more good options for him," Chun said. "Now, I'm less optimistic." While few doubted Fenty's commitment to education, whether his policies succeeded remains an open question. His schools chancellor, Michelle Rhee, fired nearly 1,000 teachers and muscled through a new labor contract that evaluates teachers based on student performance. But the district's scores on the federal National Assessment of Educational Progress showed little improvement from 2009 to 2011. And Rhee is still dogged by questions about whether cheating was responsible for higher test scores, although several investigations have found no evidence of widespread cheating. For all the attention Fenty's education platform drew, not everyone thinks it helped the city's schools. Former Mayor Barry, now a councilmember whose ward includes some of the lowest-performing schools in the district, said Fenty did little more than modernize school buildings. "Test scores show that nothing significant is happening" in schools with high percentages of children living in poverty, Barry said. "At the rate we're going, it will be 20 years before we get some schools up to proficiency." Even some Fenty supporters think Gray has done a satisfactory job. Patrick Mara, a school board member and Republican candidate for D.C. Council who's counting on Fenty supporters to back him, thinks Gray and Rhee's successor, Kaya Henderson, deserve credit for continuing to push for accountability in the school system. "In September of 2010, I was expecting the worst. I was trying to get Fenty to run as a Republican so he would stay on the ballot in the general election," Mara said. "Gray, to his credit, has stayed out of the way, for what I see." Political consultant Chuck Thies said that when Gray took office, there was no obvious, glaring issue to tackle. While Gray is running the city efficiently, he's become defined by scandal, Thies said. The low point came last summer, when a former aide and close friend pleaded guilty to funneling $650,000 in illicit contributions into Gray's campaign. U.S. Attorney Ronald Machen called the effort a "shadow campaign" and said it tainted Gray's victory, and three members of the D.C. Council called on Gray to resign. The investigation continues, and Machen is clearly targeting Gray, who has denied wrongdoing. Following the revelations about the campaign, columnist Clinton Yates wrote in The Washington Post that he was embarrassed to be a district native. "Adrian Malik Fenty, please come back," he wrote. "The city needs you." But since then, the federal probe has made no visible progress, and Gray has pressed forward with his multi-pronged agenda. This week he gave a State of the District speech that some observers interpreted as the opening salvo of a re-election campaign. Gray has not said whether he plans to run for a second term. Fenty, on the other hand, has shown no inclination to return to local politics. He did not respond to a request for comment for this article. William P. Lightfoot, a former councilmember who chaired both of Fenty's campaigns, said Fenty's legacy – warts and all – is secure. "People believed Adrian was doing well. They just didn't like him. People still believe he did a good job, and they still don't like him," Lightfoot said. "What has changed is the disappointment in Vince Gray." ___ Follow Ben Nuckols on Twitter at . https://twitter.com/APBenNuckols

Wesley Smith, First ThingsFor the last decade, some social scientists have been arguing that “happiness measurements” should replace or supplement established economic standards to judge a society’s “success.” Many environmentalists also support the idea as a way of putting lipstick on policies that could slow down economic growth. And now, the idea is deemed ready to leave the ivory tower for implementation as government policy.

Mark Landsbaum, OC RegisterContrary to the hysterical rant, the sky wasn't falling. But at least Chicken Little made an honest mistake. If only global warming alarmists were as sincerely mistaken. Too often it seems what's happening is something other than an honest mistake.

Kathleen Parker, Washington PostWe may never know exactly what happened in Benghazi, Libya, the night Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed, but it’s becoming increasingly clear that our response was short of optimal.Even today, there are far more questions than answers. Could Stevens have been saved? Was Washington doing all in its drone-loving power to intervene? And, finally, as now-retired Secretary of State Hillary Clinton fired back to congressional questioners during her recent appearance on Capitol Hill: What difference does it make?

George Will, Washington PostWith his chronically gravelly voice and relentlessly liberal agenda, Sherrod Brown seems to have stepped out of “Les Miserables,” hoarse from singing revolutionary anthems at the barricades. Today, Ohio’s senior senator has a project worthy of Victor Hugo — and of conservatives’ support. He wants to break up the biggest banks.He would advocate this even if he thought such banks would never have a crisis sufficient to threaten the financial system. He believes they are unhealthy for the financial system even when they are healthy. This is...

Coral Davenport, Nat'l JournalNORFOLK, Va."”Jimmy Strickland can tell you exactly how much money rising sea levels have cost his business. In 1989, he opened his accounting firm in a one-story brick building near Norfolk's historic cobblestoned Hague district, which surrounds one of this low-lying city's many tidal rivers.

Charles Blow, New York TimesThat’s no longer true. Not in this moment. Democrats have learned to fall in love and fall in line. Republicans are just falling apart.Last week, the opening salvos were launched in a very public and very nasty civil war between establishment Republicans and Tea Party supporters when it was reported that Karl Rove was backing a new group, the Conservative Victory Project, to counter the Tea Party’s selection of loopy congressional candidates who lose in general elections.

High political winds were gusting before the nor'easter truly started whipping through New Hampshire on Feb. 8.

I find deeply troubling the White House claim that their use of drones to assassinate suspected terrorists is "legal, ethical and wise". The release of a Department of Justice "White Paper" that purports to establish the Administration's legal justification for these killings only compounds my concern. In response to the excesses of his predecessor, President Obama promised an Administration that would respect due process, rule of law, judicial oversight, and a government that would be transparent and accountable. The "White Paper" fails to deliver on this promise. Legal critics point to the "White Paper's" vague criteria saying that it essentially gives the Administration the right to kill anyone (even a US citizen), anywhere (whether on or off the battlefield), anytime it deems it appropriate to do so. According to the procedures established by the Administration, a "drone kill" is justified if "an informed, high level [U.S.] official" decides that a "target is a high-ranking al Qaeda official or affiliate", who poses an "imminent threat of a violent attack against the United States, [where] capture is not feasible". The "White Paper" then dumbs-down the definitions of each of the operative terms ("high-ranking", "affiliate", imminent" or "feasible") to such a disturbing degree that the mandate becomes more-or-less open-ended. All this has not passed without objection. Several Senators and Members of Congress are challenging the Administration's use of drones, and several commentators and editorial writers have delivered stinging critiques. Some have compared this Administration's approach to "drone kills" with the way the Bush crowd attempted to justify their use of torture. Both initially shrouded their policies with secrecy. Both commissioned legal opinions to validate their behaviors. Both used language to obfuscate; torture became "enhanced interrogation", while assassinations have become "targeted killings". And both maintained the inherent right of the Executive Branch to operate without oversight. There is, no doubt, a perverse attractiveness to the use of drones to "take out" troublesome individuals. The technology is remarkable, allowing an individual thousands of miles away to engage in surveillance, to analyze data, and then, by remote control, to kill. It's easy and it doesn't require putting the lives of American military personnel at risk. Sure it's easy, but just because you have the technology that enables you to do something and are powerful enough to get away with doing it doesn't, by itself, provide sufficient justification. Nor does the preparation of a self-serving "White Paper" in which you give yourself questionable legal cover. It is important to consider that the technology we now possess will soon be available to other states and non-state actors. So too the "legal justifications" we are now using to give ourselves absolution, may also one day be used by others. What would be our response to Iran or Hizbollah using drones to assassinate an Israeli defense official involved in planning a military strike against Iran? Or Shabab militants similarly "taking out" an Ethiopian official? Or what if Taliban operatives were to gain access to drones and use them against an American defense official visiting a neighboring country? If they deemed the target as a "high-ranking official or affiliate" who posed "an imminent threat" and so on? Another deeply troubling issue raised by the use of drones is the subjectivity involved in the entire exercise. We are assured by Administration officials that they engage many layers of internal review and "agonize" over each and every strike. At one point they boldly stated that there were no instances where "collateral damage" occurred. Now, however, they admit that there have been "mistakes". Independent investigations from the U.K. and the U.S. estimate that of the between 2,000 to over 3, 400 who have been killed in drone strikes, "mistakes" have resulted in between 300 to over 800 civilian deaths. The term "collateral damage" is vile and antiseptic, masking, as it does, real lives lost, families affected, and entire communities traumatized. In fact, what we don't know goes much deeper. What was the evidence used to sentence to death those who were killed? How "high level" were the targets? And what exactly were they doing that made us determine that they posed an "imminent threat to the United States"? In the end, we are simply asked to "trust" that an "informed high level official" made the right call. Finally, there is the impact that this use of drones is having on affected populations, as well as on the legacy of this President. The use of overwhelming deadly force only increases the sense of alienation and powerlessness among peoples whose hearts and minds we ought to be seeking to win. Dexter Filkins writes in the New Yorker about the fear and trauma and the resultant anti-American fury created by the use of drones in a village he visited in Yemen. I have heard as much from Pakistanis. We've come a long way from the President's 2009 "Speech to the Muslim World" in which he declared his willingness to address past failings and his openness to "a new beginning". It would be tragic if this and his other promises were betrayed and the final chapter of his tenure in office were to see him ultimately defined (as he currently is in some quarters) as the "drone President". The President should listen to his critics. He still has time to change direction and to return to the promises he made to the American people to correct the course taken by his predecessor and the pledges he made to the Muslim World in Cairo, 2009.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange weighed in on the brewing controversy surrounding the Obama administration's targeted killing program Friday night during an appearance on "Real Time With Bill Maher." Assange railed against the revelation, made by NBC News earlier this week, that the U.S. government reserves the right to extrajudicially kill U.S. citizens, as long as they are perceived to be "imminent" terror threats -- with "imminence" being given an especially broad definition. Said Assange: You can be killed by someone in the White House, the president on down, completely arbitrary reasons. You won't know you're on the kill list until you're dead. Lawyers, if you have a suspicion you might be on this kill list, they can't even represent you. That was the case for our lawyers, the Center for Constitutional Rights, trying to represent Anwar Al-Awlaki -- who was discovered to be on that kill list, and his son -- wasn't even allowed to be his lawyer, because he was part of a proscribed organization. Anwar Al-Awlaki was an alleged al Qaeda militant whose assassination by drone strike in 2011 engendered a significant amount of controversy, as Awlaki was a U.S. citizen. His 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman, who was also a U.S. citizen, was killed two weeks later in a separate drone strike in Yemen. Assange continued to hammer away at the U.S. government, saying: ...[W]hen an executive can kill its own citizens arbitrarily at will, in secret, without any of the decision making becoming public, without even the rules of procedure, without even the laws behind it being public -- that's why we need organizations like WikiLeaks. Assange spoke with Maher from the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he has been living for several months. The WikiLeaks founder faces rape charges in Sweden, which he denies.

-- A look at effects in states and provinces in the path of the storm sweeping across the Northeast and southern Canada: ___ CONNECTICUT Gov. Dannel P. Malloy imposed a travel ban Friday on the state's highways and deployed National Guard troops around the state for rescues or other emergencies. A coastal flood warning was posted for southern Fairfield County, saying Friday evening's high tide could be 3 to 5 feet higher than normal in western Long Island Sound. The state's two biggest utilities planned for the possibility that up to 30 percent of their customers – more than 400,000 homes and businesses – would lose power. As of Friday night, 23,000 had no service. Nonessential state workers were ordered to stay home Friday. Schools, colleges and state courthouses were also closed. All flights after 1:30 p.m. at Bradley Airport near Hartford were canceled. Connecticut Transit ceased all bus service by 6 p.m. Friday. Some gas stations ran out of fuel Thursday night during the rush to prepare for the storm. ___ MAINE State offices closed early Friday as the storm that contributed to a 19-car pileup in Cumberland that took four hours to clear. Registration and practice runs for the National Toboggan Championships were held Friday as scheduled, but Saturday's races were postponed for a day. Up to 2 feet of snow was forecast along the southern coast, with lesser amounts across the rest of the state. ___ MASSACHUSETTS Forecasters said the storm could top Boston's record of 27.6 inches, set in 2003. Gov. Deval Patrick declared a state of emergency and ordered a statewide travel ban, believed to be the first since the blizzard of 1978. Emergency management officials reported 191,000 utility customers without power Friday night, while Boston's transit system was shut down along with Logan Airport. Flights were expected to restart Saturday afternoon. The Steamship Authority suspended all ferry service between Nantucket and Hyannis, and between Martha's Vineyard and Woods Hole. On Cape Cod, shelters opened at high schools in Sandwich, South Yarmouth, Eastham and Falmouth after a flood warning was issued; as much as 2 feet of snow is expected. Harvard University's Hasty Pudding roast for Golden Globe-winning actor Keifer Sutherland took place Friday evening in Cambridge despite the storm. ___ NEW HAMPSHIRE A blizzard warning is in effect through 4 p.m. Saturday for portions of the state. Gov. Maggie Hassan declared a state of emergency but stopped short of ordering everyone off the roads. Hundreds of schools were closed Friday, airlines canceled flights and sporting and civic events were postponed. A storm-related crash in Auburn killed a man who lost control of his vehicle and hit a tree, fire officials said. State-run liquor stores were slated to close at 6 p.m. Friday to encourage people to get off the roads by 7 p.m., when the storm is supposed to intensify. Backcountry hikers were of high-mountain whiteout conditions and 80 mph to 90 mph gusts. ___ NEW JERSEY A blizzard warning for northeast New Jersey called for as much as 14 inches of snow. Up to 10 inches were possible for most of the state, with 2 to 5 inches in south Jersey. Although assuring residents the state had the resources to keep roads and bridges passable, Gov. Chris Christie urged everyone to just stay home. Parts of the coast were expected to see waves up to 12 feet and minor to moderate flooding during high tide. Brick Township and Toms River, which were hit hard by Superstorm Sandy, issued voluntary evacuation orders for areas still recovering from that storm. The blizzard zone included the state's largest city, Newark, with a population of more than 275,000. Mayor Cory Booker urged residents to prepare for widespread power failures. NJ Transit said it would suspend service on its northern routes from 8 p.m. Friday through Saturday. Bus service north of Interstate 195, including into New York, was also suspended indefinitely. ___ NEW YORK Gov. Andrew Cuomo declared a state of emergency as snow fell heavily Friday afternoon, though officials took pains to assure residents that it would not be as bad as Superstorm Sandy. About 2,300 flights were canceled and the state's airports were expected to close, Cuomo said. Regional transportation was still running and was expected to continue throughout the night. In New York City, where 8 to 12 inches were expected, Mayor Michael Bloomberg sought to clear the streets of cars and people so 1,700 city plows could get to work; drivers were expected to work 12-hour shifts. Amtrak canceled service north of the city. New York closed Interstate 84 to truck traffic between Pennsylvania and Connecticut. A 74-year-old man died after being struck by a car in Poughkeepsie; the driver said she lost control in the snowy conditions, police said. Snowfall predictions were 10 to 15 inches in the lower Hudson Valley and 12 to 16 inches on Long Island. Depths of 6 to 18 inches were forecast upstate. About 9,000 customers were without power statewide Friday night, mostly on Long Island. ___ ONTARIO At least 350 traffic collisions were reported in Toronto, and at least three people died in southern Ontario. Many flights were canceled in Toronto, some of them because destination airports in the United States were closed by the snow. ___ PENNSYLVANIA The storm was predicted to bring a mixture of rain, snow and ice to the state. In the Pocono Mountains, where more than a foot of snow could fall, schools were closed or dismissed early, and flights were canceled at Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Airport. Snow fell at a rate of 1 to 1 1/2 inches an hour in some areas Friday evening, turning major arteries in northeastern Pennsylvania slushy or snow-covered. Farther south, more than a hundred flights were canceled out of Philadelphia Airport. The city was forecast to get 2 to 5 inches of snow. Utility companies reported about 1,200 customers without power by Friday night. ___ RHODE ISLAND Utility companies reported about 122,000 customers without power Friday night but conditions were only expected to get worse as the state braced for up to 2 feet of snow. Interstate 95 and other major highways were closed to traffic and transportation officials limited commercial traffic on the Newport Pell Bridge because of winds gusting more than 60 mph. About 100 state plows were already out on the roads, bolstered by 200 private contractors, officials said. Nonessential state workers were sent home Friday afternoon. Many schools closed and transit service was suspended at noon Friday. The last plane left T.F. Green Airport near Providence just before 1:30 p.m. Friday; no other flights were scheduled to leave until Saturday. ___ VERMONT The storm was blamed for a multiple-vehicle accident and a series of other crashes on Interstate 89 in Bolton and South Burlington. Hundreds of schools were closed. Northern Vermont is expected to get 4 to 8 inches of snow by Saturday morning, while central and southeastern parts of the state could get 8 to 16 inches. Nearly 6 inches of snow had fallen by early Friday afternoon at Mad River Glen ski area in Fayston, according to a spokesman who said a total of 18 inches was possible. ___ Sources: State and local authorities; AP reporting

WASHINGTON - John Kerry welcomed Canada's foreign affairs minister on Friday to the U.S. State Department, where TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline was a key topic of discussion despite the new secretary of state remaining publicly non-committal on the controversial project.“I hope we will be able to be in a position to make an announcement in the near term," Kerry, a fierce climate hawk during his 28 years in the U.S. Senate, told a joint news conference with John Baird in the State Department's ornate Treaty Room."I don’t want to pin down exactly when, but I assure you, in the near term," he said. "We have a legitimate process that is underway and I intend to honour that.”Kerry also noted that Canada is the largest foreign supplier of energy for the United States, something "many people in America are not aware of."The State Department, currently reviewing TransCanada's latest application for the pipeline, will decide the fate of Keystone XL because it crosses an international border.The $7 billion project, which would carry Alberta oilsands bitumen to U.S. Gulf Coast refineries, has become a flashpoint for U.S. environmentalists, who view it as a symbol of "dirty oil."“We had a good discussion with regard to Keystone," Baird said."We spoke about making a decision based on science and based on facts. Obviously when it comes to the environment, I think we have like-minded objectives."Baird is the first foreign minister to sit down with Kerry since the longtime Massachusetts lawmaker replaced Hillary Clinton as secretary of state.Kerry spoke warmly of the Canada-U.S. relationship."We have a history and a heritage of our people that is unbelievably connected," he said. "We have the same entrepreneurial spirit. We have the same core beliefs that everybody ought to be able to find their place in life to do better.”But despite knowing some French, Kerry declined to answer a question en francais."Not today, I gotta refresh myself," he said with a smile.The rapport between the two men seemed friendly as they addressed the packed news conference. And, as always when a Canadian politician visits an American counterpart, there was hockey talk.“We dove right into the toughest issues … we began with hockey," said Kerry, an lifelong hockey enthusiast and devout Boston Bruins fan."He, from Ottawa, is a fan of the Senators. And I want you to know it’s the first time I’ve ever heard someone talk well of senators, so I’m grateful for it.”But it wasn't all hockey and Keystone. The men told the assembled media that they discussed a wide array of issues, including the threat of a nuclear Iran and the ongoing crisis in Syria.“The foreign minister and I talked about this at length, at length," Kerry said of Syria. "We both share a deep concern about what is happening there. I am going to focus on it quite considerably."Both Baird and Kerry also reiterated that Iran must be prepared to address global concerns about its nuclear program during upcoming nuclear talks with international representatives in Kazakhstan.If it does so, Kerry added, the international community will respond accordingly."We are prepared to let diplomacy be the victor in this confrontation over their nuclear program," Kerry said."The president has made it clear that he is prepared to talk about a peaceful nuclear program .... Iran has a choice: they have to prove to the world that it is peaceful, and we are prepared to sit responsibly and negotiate how they can do that and how we can all be satisfied."Kerry didn't answer a question about whether there were any concerns in the U.S. capital about allegations of a Canadian connection in two recent terrorist attacks.Algeria claims Canadians were involved in last month’s terrorist attack on a gas plant. And a man who held both Canadian and Lebanese citizenship was involved in a deadly bus bombing in Bulgaria last July.

This week I had a unique opportunity to attend the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington D.C. For those unaware, it's a 61-year-old tradition for the president, senators, congressmen, and delegates from around the world to get together and, well... pray. Thursday morning Andrea Bocelli sang the opening song to bring the breakfast to order as Senator Mark Pryor and Jeff Sessions MC'd the event together. Dr. Ben Carson gave a keynote address, and President Obama gave a few insightful reflections. At the end of the breakfast, Mr. Bocelli sang another song as a benediction, and I was blown away. This man's voice is nothing short of angelic, but it was his comments after the final note that brought everyone to their feet. I hesitate to put quotes here as to not misquote his final words, but it went something like 'my country is in trouble, and I'm impressed that the Right and the Left political parties can come together like this in America.' WHAT??? The crowd rose to the occasion, and applauded for about five minutes in unison. I looked over at my friends in disbelief. I don't know if you can even begin to feel the impact of a blind opera man watching this interesting point in time as he described the problem with our system. He conveyed the need to debate public policy vigorously for what each side feels to be right, but he noticed how when it was time to stop fighting, there was a place where people could be human again. In my work with teens, I believe students need to see more of this. Teenagers need to know there's a place for debate, but there's a place for civility. They need to understand it's okay to disagree without feeling the pressure of being persecuted, because in the end we're all just trying to do the right thing according to our own worldview. That's what made America great! Our best times in history are the one's with fierce disagreement employing dynamic tensions in our society. But our ugliest times in history are when the disagreement bleeds over to a place of disdain, vitriol, and hatred. It was amazing to see these senators and congressmen under one roof for a common goal. It put into context the deep divide the media continues to talk about, because in the end each person was represented with value. Mr. Bocelli, I thank you for your insight, your words, your song, and the way you were able to see an America deeply divided, yet able to come to an event and be people of all sides willing to lay down our ideological weapons even for a moment, and be human. What an amazing experience.

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), commonly known as drones, may be coming to a police department near you. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has released an updated drone authorization list as a result of a Freedom of Information Act request made by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a non-profit organization for digital civil liberties. The new list reveals 81 entities that have applied for permission to fly drones in U.S. airspace, including a number of government agencies and universities. Seventeen police departments and sheriff's offices across the country have also filed, among them are stations in Little Rock, Ark., Gadsden, Ala., Miami, Fla., Ogden, Utah, and Seattle, Wash. Universities that can be found on the list include California State University, Cornell University, Kansas State University and Penn State University, among others. In addition, the Indian Tribal office in California, has made a request to be allowed to fly UAVs. Click here to see the complete drone authorization list. In April 2012, the FAA released a shorter list of entities that had applied for permission to fly drones in the U.S. Although some of those requests were listed as disapproved or expired, the new list does not include either distinction. An additional 20 U.S. entities that have requested drone authorization have been added to the previous list. Newly listed applicants filed their requests between July 2011 and October 2012, Lynch said, adding that the FAA did not provide the statuses of the requests on the latest document, even though EFF had requested that information. While universities are likely to fly drones for academic and research purposes, some police departments have said they want to use drones for law enforcement, including for surveillance and crowd control. A sheriff's office in Texas even went so far as to say it might be a good idea to equip its $300,000 Shadowhawk drone with Tasers, tear gas and rubber bullets, The Daily reported in March. A bill in Florida aims to ban police use of drones throughout the state, with a few exceptions for cases of terrorism, imminent danger or for search warrants, local media outlet WKMG in Orlando, Fla., reported Wednesday. And on Tuesday, a bill that seeks to ban state and local agencies from using drones passed the Virginia General Assembly, Politico reports. However, some have noted that bills like Virginia's are little more than symbolic gestures, since ultimately it's FAA that controls the airspace over the United States. The new drone authorization list comes in the wake of a 16-page Department of Justice memo obtained by NBC News that revealed senior U.S. government officials (not just President Obama) have the authority to kill American citizens suspected of having high-level position within Al Qaeda or an "associated force," even without "clear evidence" that they're planning an attack "in the immediate future."

We begin with cats and birds this week. Iron-lovers across the land were dismayed by the news that the Monopoly folks were discontinuing their favorite token, but cat-lovers were enthused by the feline token which will take its place. Being America, this was done via online voting. In avian news, the Baltimore Ravens won the Super Bowl. The bird is the word! Almost as amusing (at least for Lefties) was the news that Karl Rove will be waging full-on civil war with the Tea Party, over in Republicanland. Popcorn supplies in blue states may run dangerously low, as Democrats look forward with glee to the spectacle of the Rove vs. Craziness cage match. The irony is, quite simply, delicious. Rove, now representing the sane wing of the Republican Party, will be battling the intraparty forces of reactionary extremism and silliness that he -- more, perhaps, than any other individual -- helped create. This is of Biblical "reap what you sow" whirlwind proportions. Can Rove put down the forces he called up? Will this Republican-on-Republican violence leave casualties bleeding on the mat? Stay tuned, 2014 is looking like a real showdown! Over on the Left, there was the spectacle of Senator Dianne Feinstein getting more and more annoyed as Code Pink did what it does so well during a hearing DiFi's committee was attempting to hold on President Obama's nominee for the head of the Central Intelligence Agency. After largely ignoring the drone issue for the last four years, the media has been on a heavy drone diet all week ("droning on" one might even say, if one were looking for a cheap laugh), and these hearings were the highest-profile event in the story yet. Robot warfare is no longer science fiction. It is reality. Our laws have not caught up with this fact yet. Which has left the door wide open for the Justice Department to just create their own justifications for whatever the president orders. The folks on the Right have a good point -- what would the Left have had to say about such a state of affairs if President Romney were in the Oval Office? Or, for that matter (shudder), what do you think President McCain would have done with such sweeping power? Up until now, President Obama has mostly gotten a pass for his extension of the drone warfare that began under President Bush. No matter where you stand on the issue, it's a discussion that is indeed long overdue. In other monarchical news, so to speak, was the announcement of the discovery of the remains of King Richard III, under a parking lot. You just can't make this stuff up, folks. Somewhere, Joni Mitchell is laughing, I'm sure. On a personal note, why did seemingly everyone ignore the best Super Bowl commercials in their "favorite" lists? The ads with Stevie Wonder which tied into New Orleans voodoo theme (as well as the whole "Superstition" ad campaign) were hilarious! Didn't make me run out and buy a certain brand of beer or anything, but I certainly thought the ads deserved more attention than they got. Which brings us full circle, from silly news to serious and back to silly once again. The only thing to do, at this point, is just move on to our own awards.   Our Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week this week was Representative Jared Polis from the "Rocky Mountain High" state of Colorado. He and a Republican House member from Oregon introduced legislation this week in the House of Representatives in the hopes of interjecting some sanity into federal marijuana laws. One bill would allow states such as Colorado and Washington to legalize marijuana if their citizens saw fit to do so, without running afoul of contradictory (and outdated) federal law. Their second bill would impose a federal excise tax on marijuana sales in such states. There are many ideas for revamping the Draconian federal laws on marijuana, and each individual idea can be debated on the merits. Details aside, though, the fact that Jared and a Republican co-sponsor are even introducing bills is a good sign. In previous Congresses, this sort of effort was usually headed by two men (Barney Frank and Ron Paul) who are no longer House members. So it is good to see this particular legislative baton being picked up in bipartisan fashion. It is now over three months since the election. Colorado and Washington have signaled they are charting a new path. The Obama administration has yet to respond to the will of the voters in these two states in any meaningful fashion. This is a disgrace, and the longer it goes on the more disgraceful it gets. More power to Polis and any other Democrats who get on board such efforts. If Democrats aren't careful, the whole marijuana issue could get championed by the libertarian wing of the Republican Party. Even such hard-core Tea Partiers as Virginia's attorney general are starting to show signs of rethinking their position on the issue. After cringing in fear of being painted as "soft on the Drug War" for the past few decades, Democrats need to realize that the times they are a-changing. If they're not careful, they'll be left on the "wrong side of history" on this one. In fact, I'd encourage everyone to call up their own House member and urge them to support Polis' legislation. At this point, it couldn't hurt. For continuing in the footsteps of Barney Frank, Representative Jared Polis is our Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week. Good luck to him, and his legislation! [Congratulate Representative Jared Polis on his House contact page, to let him know you appreciate his efforts.]   I must admit, I haven't had time this week to read the leaked drone "white paper," which (from all accounts) redefines "imminent" as "something far less than normal people think when they use the word 'imminent,' to say nothing of what the dictionary defines it as." The upshot is that the White House, backed up by the Justice Department, seem to be laying down a policy of "we can kill whomever we wish whenever and wherever we wish, and we're not going to tell you about it, so there." The logic used brings to mind John Yoo, of the previous administration, from all accounts. What to call such logic, our resident grammarian wonders: Yoo-vian? Yoo-esque? Yoo-like? Yoo-tastic? Well, maybe not. But if we're going to get into such territory, it seems like we're going to need some way of modifying "logic" or "reasoning" with John Yoo's name. Feel free to coin your own suggestions in the comments, as always. But until we actually sit down and read the legalese, we feel we can't hand out more than (Dis-)Honorable Mentions to President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder, at this point. Instead, we're turning to a state that has really been a contender in the "Most Corrupt Democrats Representing Us" category for quite a number of years, now (see: Blagojevich, Rod). I speak of Illinois, home of ex-House member Jesse Jackson Jr., who just admitted he was guilty of hanky-panky with the campaign funds. His plea bargain reportedly will include some jail time, which is enough right there to win this week's Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week award. But we have a deeper grudge with Jackson. He knew he had been caught red-handed quite a while ago. He knew he was guilty, and he knew he was going down. The proper thing to do at that point would have been to either resign his seat and preserve some shred of dignity, or at the very least announce he wasn't running for re-election, to clear the 2012 field for a Democratic contender to hold onto his seat in Congress. Instead, Jackson ran for re-election and won. Days afterward, the news broke of the federal investigation he was facing, and he announced his retirement. What this means is that the state of Illinois now has to run a special election in his district, which is going to cost a pile of money. If I was the judge sentencing Jackson, I would make part of his sentence paying the state back every penny of the costs of this special election. Because the only reason it is happening is because Jackson's ego was too large to admit that his political career was over. His plea bargain today just confirms what we've believed all along. Jackson knew he was guilty, he knew he was about to be exposed, and he refused to do the right thing. For that, and for the crimes he committed with other people's money, Jesse Jackson Jr. is our Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week this week. [You can try to contact Jesse Jackson Jr. on his old campaign webpage, to let him know what you think of his actions, or you can wait a bit and write to him in care of the federal prison he's headed towards.]   Volume 244 (2/8/13) Next Tuesday, President Obama will give his State Of The Union speech to a joint session of Congress. Since he's already laid out the case for his political philosophy so well in his Inaugural Address, we can expect that Tuesday's speech will be a "laundry list" of what Obama wants to accomplish in his second term. Second terms are when presidents make every attempt to cement their "legacy" in history. Second terms are for pushing whatever didn't get done from the first-term agenda. Obama did manage to get an impressive amount of things done during his first term, but there are obviously quite a few things left on the list of things to do. So today, we're going to offer up our suggestions of what Obama should announce in his upcoming speech. These aren't the things I expect Obama to say (just to be clear), these are things I would really like Obama to say. At some point during the speech, after the high-falutin' language at the beginning of any such speech, we'll get to the laundry list of agenda items. Here's what I think should be on that list.      Fix the foreclosure mess This is possibly the biggest failure from Obama's first term. Accompanying this announcement should be news that Obama "accepting the resignations" of a few folks who are standing in the way of ever fixing the problem. "When I took office, America was in the midst of economic crisis, due in part to a burst bubble in the housing market. Since then, we have bailed out the banks and we have bailed out Wall Street. If you look at the stock market, you'll see how successful these efforts have been. But we forgot about Main Street while doing so. We tried to implement programs to help families faced with foreclosure, but these programs have so far been badly run and have not helped anywhere near the number of people we thought they would. I am naming a new team to fix the failures of the past, and to finally address the foreclosure crisis with every tool at our disposal. We may come up with new ideas that require congressional action, and when that happens we'd like Congress to become involved. The American economy cannot fully recover until we fix this underlying problem. We will fix this problem, because American homeowners deserve it. If we can save Wall Street, we can certainly help fix Main Street as well."      Right-to-Vote Amendment Even though this subject has been addressed in more amendments to the Constitution than any other since the Bill of Rights was ratified, somehow the basic right was never guaranteed. Who could be against such a simple idea? "This may shock some people, but nowhere in the United States Constitution does it address the basic right of every citizen to cast a vote for the candidates of their choice. The right to vote is never expressly laid out. I call on Congress and state legislatures across the land to fix this omission. We need a 'Right to Vote Amendment' to the Constitution. A guaranteed right of every citizen who has not run afoul of the law needs to be spelled out in plain language -- a few sentences is all it would take. Every voter across America should have this bedrock right confirmed and protected within the highest law of the land. This should not be a partisan issue -- no matter what political party you prefer, you should know that your right to have your voice heard in the selection of your official representatives in high offices and low will never be denied. I call on Congress to pass such an amendment and send it to the states for ratification. The voters of America deserve no less."      Path to citizenship Obama should use the opportunity of his big speech to draw some very hard lines in the sand on a few issues. He needs to spend political capital by threatening to veto bills that fall short of his goals. This is a good place to start. "I am heartened that a bipartisan group of senators has started seriously working on a plan to reform our immigration laws, and to address the eleven million people who are now living in the shadows of American society. While there are many aspects of such legislation we can disagree upon or try to find some compromises to solve, I can only accept a bill that will truly solve the problem with fairness. Any comprehensive immigration law which arrives on my desk without a path to citizenship contained within it will be sent back. This is not negotiable. We cannot legally create some sort of second-class status of immigrant. People come to America for a new life, and all they are asking for is a chance to participate in the American dream. Offering them a status in which they are legally allowed to be here, but barred forever from expressing their voice at the ballot box is simply unacceptable. The biggest difference between a green card holder and a naturalized citizen is being able to vote. That is what this fight is about. And I intend to stand firm on the issue, and will veto any comprehensive immigration bill that falls short of this goal."      Close the gun show loopholes While Obama may express support for a number of different ideas on the gun control issue, there ought to be one where he similarly draws a line in the sand. This is the best one to choose. "Congress is currently debating new gun control legislation for the first time in a long time. The tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut has provided urgency for tackling this important issue. While there are many proposals out there which have varying degrees of merit, there is one idea that everyone in this chamber should be able to get behind -- passing truly universal background checks for all gun sales. Close the loopholes. The American people demand it. What good is a background check at a gun store if a person can attend a gun show and buy the same gun without such a check? This is a basic issue we should all be able to agree upon. Close every loophole, pass a real universal background check bill, and I will sign it the same day. There are other legislative ideas worth passing, but this should be seen as a bare minimum. Congress needs to act, and they need to act swiftly. Close the loopholes -- all of them."      Grand bargain Use a term Republicans have been getting mileage out of right back at them. It's only fair. "For the past few years, we've heard from one side of the aisle over and over again that the biggest problem in the business community is 'uncertainty' over the economy. What is holding the recovery back is this uncertainty for the future. Well, if that really is the problem, then Congress has been doing everything in its power to make things as uncertain as possible -- for quite a while now. We stumble along from one budget crisis to the next, and it seems like they're occurring every month or maybe even every couple of weeks. The business community looks at Washington and sees short-term panic-mode budget bills passed at the absolute last second -- or sometimes, even beyond that last second. This is no way to run a country, ladies and gentlemen. We cannot keep kicking the can down the road every few months. We have to get our house in order. We have to come together for an agreement where each side is going to have to give a little, and neither side is going to get everything they want. And when we reach such an agreement, it needs to go to the floor of both houses of Congress for a vote, without the usual parliamentary trickery. Not every Democrat will vote for such a grand bargain, and not every Republican will either. But if we can get an agreement that enough members of both parties can support, then it needs to get a clean vote. Let's put a stop to this endless uncertainty. The uncertainty is not some external thing that comes from elsewhere -- it comes as a direct result of short-term measure after short-term measure. We can -- and we must -- do better than this."      Strengthen FEMA This is probably the only shot Obama will have at getting anything even remotely related to climate change through Congress, sadly. "We can argue what to do about climate change endlessly here in Congress, but there is one thing that is going to be imperative in the near future. We must expand greatly the ability of the Federal Emergency Management Agency to act after disasters strike. It is an absolute disgrace that it took three months -- a full 90 days -- for Congress to pass disaster relief aid after Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast. This is unacceptable. It needs to be fixed. I will be proposing adding 50 billion dollars to the budget to put in FEMA's disaster-readiness fund. This money will not be touched until another massive disaster hits America. Look back over the past decade, and you'll see that heading into the future this country simply has got to be better prepared for an increasing level of such enormous disasters to devastate parts of this country. We can argue until we're blue in the face over what to do about climate change, but one thing we should be able to do as a country is to adequately prepare for the consequences which are now all but inevitable. Ninety days to pass disaster relief is ninety days too many. If it takes that long, then each time Congress delays it will only be delaying replenishing this fund, and the victims of large disasters can be taken care of in the meantime. You all should be ashamed of yourselves that I even have to propose such a thing, but that's indeed where we are with today's politics getting in the way of helping people in need."      Reform marijuana laws And finally, one that I know Obama is not going to say, but have to include anyway, just because. "I will soon be accepting Attorney General Eric Holder's resignation..." OK, well, that's obviously not going to happen, so let's try again and make it more believable this time: "I have listened to the voters of Colorado and Washington, and over one-third of the states of this Union who have expressed their wishes that the federal law regarding marijuana is outdated, harmful, and in dire need of reform. Rather than continue to bury our heads in the sand here in Washington, we simply must come up with a more workable legal framework. This does not mean getting rid of all federal drug laws regarding marijuana, but it does mean we've got to make them a lot more flexible to allow individual states to experiment with their own ideas on how marijuana should be regulated. I've had some experience experimenting with marijuana myself, in the past [pause for laughter]. I don't think my life would have been better had I been busted when I was a teenager -- in fact, I probably wouldn't be in front of you right now if that had happened. I was lucky, to put it another way. But not everyone is so lucky. We as a country have been fighting this battle for a very long time, but it can never be truly 'won.' Instead of destroying hundreds of thousands of young people's lives with very harsh penalties for something I did as a youngster, we need to change our tactics. This will begin with allowing any state who chooses to legalize marijuana for either medicinal or recreational use. We need to rewrite the Controlled Substances Act to allow for states to be true laboratories of democracy on the issue. If Congress will not act, then I will instruct my Attorney General to do what he can under the power federal drug laws already give him. And I'd like to thank my fellow former members of the 'Choom Gang' who made it to be with us here tonight [points to balcony, where several Hawaiian ex-stoners sit]. Long time no see, guys!"   Chris Weigant blogs at: Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigantBecome a fan of Chris on Huffington PostFull archives of FTP columns: FridayTalkingPoints.comAll-time award winners leaderboard, by rank