Anthony Citrano on the Drug War

Here is an excerpt from Huffposts Anthony Citrano on the drug war:

This year, about two million people will be arrested for a drug offense. In a great number of these cases, young Americans guilty of nothing more than the possession of a politically incorrect intoxicant - ranging from marijuana to crack cocaine - will be separated from their families, stripped of eligibility for student aid, and eternally exiled from the world of gainful employment. This unfolds hundreds of times each day while we - the privileged - sip our martinis and dare wonder why they don't make better lives for themselves.

These policies have amounted to nothing short of a genocide. Millions of supposedly free Americans - most of them poor black Americans - have been arrested, imprisoned, and had their hopes and futures destroyed - all for possessing the moral equivalent of a bottle of wine.

Beyond staggering social costs, these policies have seriously damaged the Constitutional rights of us all. In the name of protecting us from our vices, we have assented to the evisceration of our fourth, fifth, eighth and tenth Amendment rights. And recently, in the Supreme Court's Morse v. Frederick decision (colloquially known as "Bong Hits for Jesus"), we trimmed our hallowed First Amendment rights as well: the Court actually ruled that speech can be selectively punished based merely on its marijuana-based content. This is a flagrant affront to the Framers' First Amendment intent that no idea should ever be considered too dangerous to be heard.

Our double standards are staggering: American television networks sandwich "anti-drug" ads between beer commercials and dreamy sequences that promote "medications" to cheer us up. That most of us miss the irony is a vivid demonstration of our blindness; it would be funny were it not so heartbreaking

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I Love Irony

Mike Duncan, former head of the RNC has been speaking out a lot lately on the "socialist" and "nanny" state that the Democrats supposedly will contruct. He hates it. Mike is a man of high principal and strong conviction.

Well he took a new job. He is the new head of the Tenneessee Valley Authority, one of the biggest, most expensive, and most socialist-y projects of the New Deal. Here's hoping Mike gets a a refrigerator and a Chevrolet for his trouble.

Sen. Gregg

Sen. Judd Gregg (R NH) just pulled his name out of nomination for Commerce Secretary. So much for the big bipartisan effort by the Obama Administration.

One would hate to think that Sen. Gregg played out this string to deliver the maximum screwing to the new Democratic Adminstration. You would hate to believe it, so I suspect it is true.

Between the stimulus and this, we have twice seen the President extend a hand only to see the GOP raise a middle finger and try to turn it to political advantage. Hopefully someone in the the Oval is getting the picture. (One, of course, remembers another Democratic president who came to office confident in his ability to reach consensus, forge deals, run to the center and be all bipartisan. The Republican Congress tried to impeach him.)

Great Theater ... Of the Absurd

I checked out some of the House hearings yesterday. One of the most amusing moments came when Rep. Maxine Waters asked the banks why they paid themselves underwriting fees to place TARP guarantees. In other words, they made money taking money from the government. $17 million for one bank alone.

What is sad is that I do not think the public will ever get the full picture of the bizarre and -- at times -- misleading ways American financial institutions make money for their management team and create the illusion of profitability. It gives "house of cards" a new name. All the stimuli in the world will not help if we don't change the way we do business and change the culture of entitlement in the financial industry.

Its True -- Its in the News

ABC News is reporting that "Kinky Sex Is On the Rise." Of course, for your average watcher of ABC News, that means the lights are getting left on a little longer.

The Stimuli

I have been following the stimulus debate in a haphazard way. Some observations:

I am concerned that the compromises the Democrats made to pick up a few Republican votes may gut the most effective part of the stimulus -- money that could be spent on projects by states. What we have now are more tax cuts, which no one believes can really help an economy in such bad shape.

It may very well be the case that Congressional Republicans are still drinking heavily of the kool aide, or they simply hope to be as obstructionist as possible. Too much effort expended on a show of bipartisanship may not be time well spent.

The survival of the Republican argument for tax cuts is proof that Darwin was wrong. Sometimes the unfit do survive. Usually just long enough to muck things up.

I saw Mike Steele on The Week. He is an idiot. His point about government money creating "work" and not "jobs" was silly. His belief that private sector jobs do not go away was even sillier. I'll just say it. If Mike Steele is white, no way he's Chairman of the RNC. His elevation was just a cynical and half hearted attempt at being able to say "we've got a black guy too.."

Christopher Buckley on the Vatican

From conservative Christopher Buckley's blog:

I’m no longer a practicing member of Mother Church, but the old reflexes die hard. Once an altar boy, always an altar boy. But really, I have to say, out loud, as it were, What—the fuck—were you thinking of, Your Holiness? This repugnant episode is surely to the Vatican what Abu Ghraib was to the Pentagon. No, actually, worse. Actually, not even on the same scale.

On Daschle, on Donner, On Vixen...

Today former Sen. Tom Daschle withdrew his name from consideration to be Secretary of HHS. Good. Daschle's $140k income tax "oversight" was only one problem. The larger problem was that his post Senate career demonstrated the kind on insider-influence- peddling-unofficial-lobbying, which makes men like Daschle rich, but impoversishes the idea that government should look out for the common good.

Oddly, President Obama's misstep may actually be a sign that we are making some progress.

Nice...

Only days after making peace with a Holocaust Denier, Pope Ratzinger has elevated Gerhard Maria Wegner as Auxiliary Bishop of Linz, Austria. Wegner drew attention some time ago when he wrote that Hurricane Katrina was in fact divine retribution against the city of New Orleans because it had "the best brothels and the prettiest prostitutes."


I do not know where Wegner went to seminary, but it definitely was not in New Orleans. Wegner was silent as to the sins of those in Gulfport, Mississippi which was also destroyed by Katrina. (I guess we have to assume that they visited the prostitutes in New Orleans.)

Hey... We've Got a Black Guy Too

The RNC has elected Michael Steele as its chairman. I suppose that pretty much absolves them of the "Southern Strategy" years of foot dragging on civil rights, and all the veiled statements about States Rights.