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Advocates: Obama Should Treat Drug and Alcohol Addicts Too
Tweet Share on Facebook June 18, 2009 Comment (8)By Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers
With the president and Congress considering major, expensive healthcare reform, a group representing an often forgotten group has a message for Washington: Drug and alcohol addicts deserve your love too. The Closing the Addiction Treatment Gap program run by the private Open Society Institute has provided Whispers with a poll that says most Americans know an addict and worry that they can't get the treatment they need.
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First Lady Michelle Obama, Gardener in Chief
Tweet Share on Facebook June 16, 2009 Comment (6)By Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers
She didn't look like much of a gardener, dressed in carnation-red jeans, a T-shirt and sweater, and fashionable sneakers, but that didn't stop Michelle Obama from getting down in the dirt of her Summer Vegetable Garden on Tuesday to begin the harvesting of lettuce and snap peas. "It's fun," she said, cheering her 36 helpers from D.C.'s Bancroft Elementary School. -
Obama's Records to be Measured in Petabytes
Tweet Share on Facebook June 16, 2009 Comment (3)By Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers
It's taking nearly a year longer than planned to install all the Bush records into National Archive computers, largely because the digital file is historically big—100 terabytes. But archivists are already bracing for the even more high-tech Obama records, especially if the prez serves two terms. Acting Archivist Adrienne Thomas reveals that the Clinton total was just two terabytes and the agency expects the jump from W to Obama to be akin to that of Bubba to Bush. But when asked what that number would be, she deferred to staff, who said Obama's totals would be measured in "petabytes." For the record, one petabyte equals 1 quadrillion bytes.
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McGovern Wants to Feed Children in Haiti
Tweet Share on Facebook June 16, 2009 Comment (8)By Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers
It's been nearly 40 years since he was at his political apex, but 1972 Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern still has some punch in Washington. That's because he's half of the McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program. This year, he won the president's backing to double the yearly spending to $200 million, and he tells Whispers that he wants it focused on Haiti. "We ought to make it the centerpiece," he says of feeding poor Haitian kids. "If for no other reason than it's in our own backyard."
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Drug Dealers' Secrets Revealed in Justice Department Reports
Tweet Share on Facebook June 15, 2009 Comment (14)By Alex Kingsbury, Washington Whispers
Where do all those drugs in your hometown come from? Which vehicles are most likely to be transporting drugs? Which highways and side roads are the most traveled by narcotics traffickers? The answers are contained in a new series of reports published for 32 market cities, from the Justice Department's National Drug Intelligence Center. Made public for the first time, the detailed reports describe the dirty intricacies of drug dealing in many cities, including the Baltimore/Washington area. For instance, "package delivery services are increasingly being used by drug traffickers in the region, particularly to transport marijuana, which is typically sent in multi-pound parcels from the Southwest Border area. Many drug traffickers prefer to use package delivery services because they can monitor the progress of shipments on the Internet." More of the cocaine comes from cartels based in New York City, according to the report. Marijuana comes from Mexico through Georgia and North Carolina. Vietnamese traffickers from Toronto are the primary ecstasy traffickers in the region, while gangs bring in most of the PCP from California, often in plastic bottles in checked airline luggage.
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Blogging From the War Zones
Tweet Share on Facebook June 15, 2009 CommentBy Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers
If you want to keep up with what Pentagon brass and the White House are reading about Iraq and Afghanistan, then bookmark smallwarsjournal.com. "We enjoy a huge popularity among policymakers," says editor Dave Dilegge, a defense consultant and former Marine Corps Reserve intelligence officer. And they should. Unlike other sites and blogs, Small Wars has military and nonmilitary government officials in the war zones writing for it and debating fixes to a broad spectrum of current problems. But, says Dilegge, the nonprofit site isn't giving up military secrets. "We're not the Drudge Report. We're people working for solutions." It's good for most involved: The brass value the evaluations from those down the line, and junior officers like to be heard.
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Afghan Presidential Candidate Uses Obama's Online Model
Tweet Share on Facebook June 15, 2009 Comment (1)By Anna Mulrine, Washington Whispers
Afghan presidential candidate Ashraf Ghani, the leading challenger to incumbent Hamid Karzai, has launched an Internet fundraising campaign modeled on that run by President Barack Obama. The plan is to appeal to "relatively young people outside the country," says one campaign worker. "Our target audience are Afghans who don't think the current situation—corruption, crime, drugs, violence, warlordism—has to continue." The Internet drive with a Web page is aimed at expatriates, who cannot vote but have been contributing an average of $10 to $20 since the Internet campaign was launched, according to the campaign. The first contributor, they point out by way of example, was a University of Massachusetts student. The total contributions thus far have been modest, but the campaign remains optimistic. "If this trend continues, if the contributions continue at this pace, there's an opportunity not just to build a sizable war chest," says the campaign worker, "but to set an example for the future. If you can do this in Afghanistan, you can do it anywhere." Ghani, who was a candidate for the post of secretary general of the United Nations in 2006, has a base of support among Afghans who point to his reform-minded initiatives and development projects during his time as Afghanistan's finance minister from 2002 to 2004.
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Hillary Clinton Turns State Department Tech-Friendly
Tweet Share on Facebook June 14, 2009 Comment (2)By Nikki Schwab, Washington Whispers
Barack Obama may have been texting, tweeting, and YouTubing circles around Hillary Clinton during the 2008 presidential campaign, but now that he's her boss, the secretary of state is catching up. Meet Hillary Clinton 2.0—the tech-friendly, Web-savvy version of the former candidate and New York senator who's pushing what insiders call 21st-century statecraft: enhancing diplomacy through technology.
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McAuliffe Defeat Stings Clinton and Warner
Tweet Share on Facebook June 14, 2009 Comment (3)By Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers
Longtime Bill Clinton buddy Terry McAuliffe's bruising defeat in the Virginia gubernatorial primary wasn't just a sign that Bubba, who campaigned hard for his fundraiser, is losing his magic touch. Democrats say it was also a blow to Sen. Mark Warner, practically sainted as a fiscal savior in the Old Dominion, since McAuliffe used Warner's campaign and ad team.
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Body Politic: The Senate's New Soap Opera
Tweet Share on Facebook June 13, 2009 Comment (3)By Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers
What with senators switching parties, one caught in an airport bathroom scandal, and another admitting affection for hookers, the chamber sometimes has a soap-opera feel. But now, if the CW buys it, the Senate will be the subject of a real TV soap opera called Body Politic. Actress Gabrielle Union tells Whispers that she and a cast that includes Tim Matheson of Animal House have completed a pilot that's winning rave reviews in Hollywood. She plays a snubbed Democratic aide who switches to work for Matheson, a top GOP senator. "It's a soap opera in the best way possible," she gushes. The pilot was shot in Richmond at the state capital. "We had full access. It was a great place to film," she says.
