Normalizing treason

[. . .]

But when a senior aide to the President of the United States endangers the life of an undercover CIA agent, her colleagues and contacts around the world - when he chooses to put at risk our entire effort to undercover weapons of mass destruction before they are used to kill millions in an American city - what response do we get from the Bush White House and the Republican Party? A defensive (offensive) shrug.

The Republican party's gift to the American people, and the Bush administration's legacy, will be the normalization of treason. They are trying to convince Americans that betraying our country during wartime for personal gain is no more serious than running a stop sign or going 60 in a 55 zone. [my em]

[. . .]

A must-read by John at AMERICAblog.

You ain't gonna believe this...

...but go read this article anyway. Not only will it help you with your Christmas gift shopping, you will be one step closer to being able to say you've heard everything. And, no, I haven't jumped the gun on the legalization of all the mindbenders in my previous post!

Heh . . . see yas!

Three more assholes to get stretched. WaPo via Digby:

[. . .]

Abramoff quietly arranged for eLottery to pay conservative, anti-gambling activists to help in the firm's $2 million pro-gambling campaign, including Ralph Reed, former head of the Christian Coalition, and the Rev. Louis P. Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition. Both kept in close contact with Abramoff about the arrangement, e-mails show. Abramoff also turned to prominent anti-tax conservative Grover Norquist, arranging to route some of eLottery's money for Reed through Norquist's group, Americans for Tax Reform.

[. . .]

Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of guys.

Let those dopers be...

Good article in the LATimes by a former Seattle police chief.

SOMETIMES PEOPLE in law enforcement will hear it whispered that I'm a former cop who favors decriminalization of marijuana laws, and they'll approach me the way they might a traitor or snitch. So let me set the record straight.

Yes, I was a cop for 34 years, the last six of which I spent as chief of Seattle's police department.

But no, I don't favor decriminalization. I favor legalization, and not just of pot but of all drugs, including heroin, cocaine, meth, psychotropics, mushrooms and LSD.

I've never understood why adults shouldn't enjoy the same right to use verboten drugs as they have to suck on a Marlboro or knock back a scotch and water.

Regulated legalization would soon dry up most stockpiles of currently illicit drugs - substances of uneven, often questionable quality (including "bunk," i.e., fakes such as oregano, gypsum, baking powder or even poisons passed off as the genuine article). It would extract from today's drug dealing the obscene profits that attract the needy and the greedy and fuel armed violence. And it would put most of those certifiably frightening crystal meth labs out of business once and for all.

The demand for illicit drugs is as strong as the nation's thirst for bootleg booze during Prohibition. It's a demand that simply will not dwindle or dry up. Whether to find God, heighten sexual arousal, relieve physical pain, drown one's sorrows or simply feel good, people throughout the millenniums have turned to mood- and mind-altering substances.

They're not about to stop, no matter what their government says or does. It's time to accept drug use as a right of adult Americans, treat drug abuse as a public health problem and end the madness of an unwinnable war.

I'm with him all the way. He goes into a lot more detail, so go read.

Casualties

Of the Bush Administration. Over the past 5 years, a boatload of folks with ethics and principle have resigned or been cashiered. TomDispatch has a list.

Hat tip: Melanie

Sunday chores

Finishing the painting (remember the bookshelf project?) that I put on hold during the deluge of the past week (I want my fucking paint to dry.) I'll probably be on later. In progress pics below the fold.

The Gulag of our time

Gary looks at the Amnesty International report and the demands for access at Gitmo.

Yeah, whatever

Steve Soto on that eight page steaming load of crap the New York Times unloaded on us. I lost interest a page in.

Hat tip: Wolcott

Update:

Susie has reaction from around Left Blogtopia (y!sctp!) along with a few of her own.

I'm on it

SASKATOON, Saskatchewan, Oct. 14 - Advocates for medical marijuana can take heart over the findings of two Canadian research teams.

A synthetic cannabinoid -- similar to the compounds found in marijuana, but substantially stronger -- causes the growth of new neurons and reduces anxiety and depression, investigators at the University of Saskatchewan here reported. [my em]

[. . .]

I expect to hear from Harvard or Yale presently. I think a nice Professor Emeritus of Weedology would be an acceptable position.

Great thanks to hairy fish nuts.

Resources

Cruising through Spudnik's site, I'm reminded* I wanted to blog about this. There's an aggregator called unpartisan.com who collects blog posts from both sides. (They reference us a lot.) I use it to see how the Freepers react to certain subjects as opposed to what we (the Left) do without having to actually surf through the wingnut sites themselves.

*Short term memory loss

Ha!

Neil Shakespeare:

...

"Dear Karl,

Enclosed find your target. Please turn around and pin this on your ass.

Love, Pat."

...

Wait until next year

I gotta do this. I'm pretty sure I could build a far better artillery piece than this clown. I wonder if they'd let me pack the pumpkins with a little black powder and a detonator? It'd be easier to see where they end up downrange. Heh. Now to con pursuade the Mrs to let me build one. She's got a problem with me having firearms.

Broken

I wrote about this the other day and Billmon takes up the cause:

[. . .]

But in addition to the Miers nomination, it also reminded me of one of the great ironies of Shrub's presidency: an administration that came to power determined to win maximum freedom of action in foreign policy by going it alone (or recruiting ad hoc coalitions that would submissively follow Washington's lead) has ended up virtually paralyzed by the consequences of its own hubris.

[. . .]

Conspiracy theories

I think Lambert puts his finger directly on it:

[. . .]

The Times hasn't mentioned the [White House Iraq Group] W.H.I.G. because they were part of the W.H.I.G. disinformation campaign. In Traitorgate, Valerie Plame was outed to protect that operation, because the Niger uranium story was one of the stories that W.H.I.G. planted. (Remember the crude forgery of mysterious provenance that the yellowcake story was based on?)

And the reason it seems like they were all in on it, is that they were all in on it. All the Kewl Kidz, and all the media whores. The whole Beltway 500 crowd is dirty. (Not you, Dan Froomkin, and not you, Walter Pincus.)

[. . .]

This is the most plausible explanation so far of why the press caved when it came to anything the Chimp did.

Update:

ReddHedd at Jane's also looks at the WHIG relating to the Agency. I touched on this the other day too.

Update:

Stolen from Atrios:

Reading Reddhead's walk down the yellowcake road I'm struck by something - exactly why was it so necessary to "get" Wilson? It can't simply be the simply be about the "sixteen words" in the SOTU speech. It must be what all that pointed to - where those obviously forged documents came from... [my em]

It's all coming together beautifully. (sniff)

Doing something

Something you might want to look into for your area. The local rock & roll station is trying to keep home heating oil prices down. Call it OPEC of Long Island.

Let's face it, home heating oil is going to take a toll on our finances this winter. Wouldn't it be great if you could get the cheapest rate on Long Island? Well that's what the Roger and JP Oil Cartel is trying to accomplish.

If you know someone who works, manages or owns an oil company big or small, that can give Long Islanders the lowest home heating oil price for the entire winter, we want to hear from you!

The oil company that can meet this goal, will become the official oil company of the Rock and Roll Morning Show, getting daily mentions on Roger and JP, potentially doubling your current customer base.

Think you can help us help you? Contact Roger and JP Oil Cartel here:

Roger@wbab.com

JP@wbab.com

Check the current price of home heating oil here.

Roger and JP Oil Cartel Motto
Hey, If we're gonna get screwed, let's get screwed a little less.

Arm twisting

WASHINGTON - The White House is seeking the help of Republican activists in Iowa and New Hampshire to pressure GOP senators with presidential hopes to support Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers.

[. . .]

Remember the heady days when Repubs could run the Dems over with legislation? Heh, now they have to pressure their own people to support a nomination. How's it feel, bitches?

Great thanks: Maru

They get letters

Operation Yellow Elephant.

Now that it's safe, the media gets brave...

Paul Krugman at True Blue Liberal.

George W. Bush, I once wrote, "values loyalty above expertise" and may have "a preference for advisers whose personal fortunes are almost entirely bound up with his own." And he likes to surround himself with "obsequious courtiers."

Lots of people are saying things like that these days. But those quotes are from a column published on Nov. 19, 2000.

Right now, with the Bush administration in meltdown on multiple issues, we're hearing a lot about President Bush's personal failings. But what happened to the commanding figure of yore, the heroic leader in the war on terror? The answer, of course, is that the commanding figure never existed: Mr. Bush is the same man he always was. All the character flaws that are now fodder for late-night humor were fully visible, for those willing to see them, during the 2000 campaign.

And President Bush the great leader is far from the only fictional character, bearing no resemblance to the real man, created by media images.

And that makes it all too easy for coverage to be shaped by what reporters feel they can safely say, rather than what they actually think or know. Now that Mr. Bush's approval ratings are in the 30's, we're hearing about his coldness and bad temper, about how aides are afraid to tell him bad news. Does anyone think that journalists have only just discovered these personal characteristics?

Let's be frank: the Bush administration has made brilliant use of journalistic careerism. Those who wrote puff pieces about Mr. Bush and those around him have been rewarded with career-boosting access. Those who raised questions about his character found themselves under personal attack from the administration's proxies. (Yes, I'm speaking in part from experience.) Only now, with Mr. Bush in desperate trouble, has the structure of rewards shifted.

What we really need is political journalism based less on perceptions of personalities and more on actual facts. Schadenfreude aside, we should not be happy that stories about Mr. Bush's boldness have given way to stories analyzing his facial tics. Think, instead, about how different the world would be today if, during the 2000 campaign, reporting had focused on the candidates' fiscal policies instead of their wardrobes.

I love Krugman. He's one of the few who have called it like they see it from the git-go. The other two brave ones are Maureen Dowd and Molly Ivins.

It's easy to be fearless when there's no danger. It's the old "You get him down and I'll jump in" syndrome.

The media seems to be doing OK right now, but they have a lot to make up for.

Lubrication

As a mechanic, it's a subject near and dear to my heart. Proper lubrication is paramount. Or, as Frank Zappa says, 'keep it greasy so it go down easy'.

Outsourcing

Sort of:

[. . .]

Called "third country nationals" (TCN) in contractor's parlance, they hail largely from impoverished Asian countries such as the Philippines, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Pakistan, as well as from Turkey and countries in the Middle East. Once in Iraq, TCNs earn monthly salaries between $200 to $1,000 as truck drivers, construction workers, carpenters, warehousemen, laundry workers, cooks, accountants, beauticians, and similar blue-collar jobs.

[. . .]

Invisible Army of Cheap Labor

Tens of thousands of such TNC laborers have helped set new records for the largest civilian workforce ever hired in support of a U.S. war. They are employed through complex layers of companies working in Iraq. At the top of the pyramid-shaped system is the U.S. government which assigned over $24 billion in contracts over the last two years. Just below that layer are the prime contractors like Halliburton and Bechtel. Below them are dozens of smaller subcontracting companies-- largely based in the Middle East --including PPI, First Kuwaiti Trading & Contracting and Alargan Trading of Kuwait, Gulf Catering, Saudi Trading & Construction Company of Saudi Arabia. Such companies, which recruit and employ the bulk of the foreign workers in Iraq, have experienced explosive growth since the invasion of Iraq by providing labor and services to the more high-profile prime contractors.

This layered system not only cuts costs for the prime contractors, but also creates an untraceable trail of contracts that clouds the liability of companies and hinders comprehensive oversight by U.S. contract auditors. In April, the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of the U.S. Congress concluded that it is impossible to accurately estimate the total number of U.S. or foreign nationals working in Iraq.

[. . .]

This is just another way for Halliburton to make a bigger profit. It's also a dry run for what they have planned for this country. Cheap labor, low (or no) benifits, and a greater profit margin for the robber barons.

Hat tip: Thomas Leavitt at STF.