Today the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol is turning in nearly 160,000 signatures to the Colorado Secretary of State office to get their marijuana legalization initiative on the November ballot. That is nearly twice the 85,853 valid signatures required by state law to get an initiative put on the ballot.

According to current polling, January is shaping up to be a tough month for Mitt Romney. There are four contests in January: Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Florida. Romney currently leads only in New Hampshire while Newt Gingrich has a double digit lead in the other three states. But the Republican primary calendar in February looks more favorable for Romney. It could be the month that Romney breaks Gingrich’s January momentum before Super Tuesday, March 6th.

The poll is especially important because soon voters of Colorado will likely officially decide on the legal status of marijuana because the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana like Alcohol has recently turned in enough signatures to get their initiative qualified for the ballot.

Weaponized UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles), also known as drones, have their own caucus in Congress, and the Pentagon’s plan is to give them their own state as well.

Under this plan, 7 million acres (or 11,000 square miles) of land in the southeast corner of Colorado, and 60 million acres of air space (or 94,000 square miles) over Colorado and New Mexico would be given over to special forces testing and training in the use of remote-controlled flying murder machines. The full state of Colorado is itself 104,000 square miles. Rhode Island is 1,000 square miles. Virginia, where I live, is 43,000 square miles.

The U.S. military (including Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines) is proceeding with this plan in violation of the public will, new state legislation on private property rights, an exceptionally strong federal court order, and a funding ban passed by the United States Congress, and in the absence of any approved Environmental Impact Statement.

You might have noticed this past week that the Department of Justice has seemingly declared war on Medical Marijuana dispensaries. The first salvo was probably at the end of September when the ATF issued a statement that it is illegal for medical marijuana users to use firearms. Since then, the four California US Attorneys have declared that California Medical Marijuana dispensaries have to close within 45 days:

Although majority support for marijuana legalization is a good sign for this Colorado campaign, it should be noted that in 2010 the California marijuana legalization measure, Proposition 19, was ahead in early polling but ended up losing narrowly on election day. This Colorado effort should be in slightly better shape than Prop 19 was because they are trying to put the issue on the ballot in a Presidential Election year. Presidential elections tend to see much higher turn out among young voters who strongly support legalization.

In Chris Cillizza’s smug dismissal of liberal frustration, with the curt statement “liberals and progressives have nowhere else to go,” he overlooks the fact that liberals have plenty of places to go. More than ever, in fact. From a movement-building perspective, there are more opportunities than normal in an off year to really make a difference on progressive policy.

Thursday in Colorado a broad coalition of organizations officially launched the petition drive to put the Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol Act of 2012 on the ballot next November. To get on the ballot, the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol will need to gather 86,000 valid signatures over the next 180 days.

If you want to know about the impact of spending caps, just travel to Colorado.

The re-apportionment of congressional districts connected to the 2010 census will result in several Democratic-leaning states, such as New Jersey, Massachusetts, and New York, losing House seats. The loss of congressional members, also means these reliably blue states now have fewer votes in the Electoral College. The result could be that the early primary states of Iowa and New Hampshire gain even more importance in deciding who the next president will be.