– Sensible Washington is having 4/20-related events around the state, including a press conference and rally tomorrow starting at 1pm in Westlake Park.
– Seattle city officials sent a very strong message today to both the State Senate and Governor Gregoire that passage of the medical marijuana bill is vitally important to ensure we have a well-regulated system for handling medical marijuana.
– Glenn Greenwald on the bizarre priorities of our government.
– Charli Carpenter writes about the opportunity that we’ve been wasting for the nearly ten years we’ve been in Afghanistan.
Bowing to public pressure, the Pentagon has moved accused Wikileaker Pvt. Bradley Manning from the Marine brig at Quantico, VA, where he reportedly was abused by Marine guards, to a medium-security Army prison where he’ll be allowed to leave his cell and mingle with other prisoners, have access to reading materials and TV, better food, and won’t be forced to strip and stand naked.
Goes to show what citizen protests can accomplish.
MSNBC has a nice story on cannabis and a couple of local people merit coverage in it.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42....._business/
Kathy Parkins and Jeremy Miller make the news. Nice story.
@3,
I support full legalization of cannabis. It’s hard to convince those up-tight religious zealots out there that marijuana has become part of the culture, but the times they are a-changin’! I predict that marijuana will be legal within 20 years. Let’s just support legalization, sane regulation, and moderate taxation to help things along!
@1,
Even if Pvt. Manning is eventually found guilty, I think he has done us all a service. We need to know what our government is up to because ordinary citizens suffer the consequences of all the cloak-and-dagger screw-ups as well as the diplomatic gaffs. There’s nothing like sunlight to clean out government corruption.
Speaking of government screw-ups. I saw a piece on Fox News a couple of days ago. They were interviewing Lt. Col Tony Shaffer. Shaffer, apparently a military intelligence guy, achieved some notoriety from writing a revealing book about our adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Army eventually bought all the copies of the book to preclude distribution to the general public.
Anyway, Shaffer was discussing what would happen once we left Afghanistan. His thoughts were that chaos would again erupt in that country. The thing that caught my attention about his statement was that, even if Afghans start killing each other once we leave, at least we’ll be out of the fight! Seems like we’ve just made a mess in Afghanistan. Too bad – they’ll probably hate us for centuries.
http://emptywheel.firedoglake......r-for-oil/
Finally, a jobs bill
By: Attaturk Wednesday April 20, 2011 1:30 am
It took the Republican House more than 100 days, but you can no longer say they have failed to create a single jobs bill. Why to keep gays and lesbians from getting married they’ve employed a lawyer for at least a half-million dollars — or as they and Charles Gibson call it — middle-class wages. Finally, a job(s) platform to run on. The Republic is saved.
It was quite a day for the Grand Old Party. Arizona governor Jan Brewer showed that she does a good impression of a stopped clocked. Literally. She vetoed bills allowing college students to impersonate Yosemite Sam and requiring Presidential Candidates, especially the black ones, to show their birth certificates or, alternatively amongst other things, that they’ve been circumcised.
But Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal is outraged, and proclaims he would have signed that latter bill without reservation. Giving him a truly awesome future campaign slogan, “Re-Elect Jindal, at a minimum he’d like to know about your penis“.
The big pharma firms worldwide won’t let any domestic production happen in Afghanistan, they’re content to let the country rot in it pseudo-theocratic hell for however long. Karzai is the worst. Terry Jones burned the Quran, NOTHING HAPPENED for almost two weeks, then KARZAI makes a speech condemning the burning and demanding Jones’ arrest. THE VERY NEXT DAY the UN compound was attacked. As long as we continue to have puppets as opposed to democratic leaders, Central Asia and the Middle East are fucked.
America is headed in the right direction according to a record low number of people.
Right Direction or Wrong Track
22% Say U.S. Heading in Right Direction, Ties Lowest Level of Obama’s Presidency
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
I simply cannot understand why President Obama does not step up and lead on some issues. He is letting the Rethugs lead on everything and hope he can somehow poke holes in their ideas.
Very frustrating and no way to win re-election.
It almost seems like he wants to lose.
Looks like the Queen of Washington has a new set of friends!!!!!
Nothing like hanging out with biker gang members, including a cop killer! Holy Shit!
They were the queens special guests as she signed a bill that forbids profiling of…get this…..bikers! HAHHAHAAHHAHHA
Nothing like having a cop killer and known gang members there to celebrate the signing of that bill!
HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHA…WHAT A JOKE!
Chalk another one up to our progressive numbnut voters…..
Reference 8: I don’t think Obama will lose in 2012. The Republicans really don’t have anybody who can win: it’s either religious kooks or crony capitalists. I think we can agree that the nation has had enough of those people!
Check out the queen hanging with her new homies!
http://www.mynorthwest.com/?nid=11&sid=466405
The Banditos…..The Outsiders……Hells Angels……
yep, that some quality people there…..
I wonder who got the ceremonial pen used to sign the bill?
@12
Well she’s pissed off just about everyone else. Those are the only people left that will hangout with her.
Frank McCourt Loses Control Of Dodgers
MLB Commissioner Bud Selig hasn’t just put the Dodgers in receivership, he has effectively confiscated the team. But not to worry, Frank, because Bud didn’t take anything away from you that your soon-to-be-ex-wife wouldn’t have, anyway.
http://hardballtalk.nbcsports......ns/related
I don’t remember any other instance of a baseball team getting put into receivership. I guess that means the Dodgers are broke. Maybe because McCourt used the team as a piggy bank to bail out his personal finances — ya think maybe that possibly coulda maybe busted the team? I wonder if this means the Dodgers won’t be able to pay those multimillion-dollar salaries and the players will have to work for minimum wage this season. Geez, just imagine a big-league pitcher or slugger taking home $7.55 an hour — well, that’s cheap labor conservatives for ya.
In other news, two award-winning photojournalists — Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros — have been killed in Libya.
I can almost hear the righties cheering already.
Wingers, you see, don’t like journalists. That’s because it’s harder to get away with dishonesty, lying, war crimes, murder, and genocide when reporters are around.
War correspondents are true heroes. They are among the most intrepid people on earth. Their work is highly dangerous and they certainly don’t do it for money — most are freelances who pay their own expenses and hope to get paid by some media organization or other. It’s thankless — and often lethal — work. Yet, if it weren’t for them, the world would know nothing about what goes on in wars, except what lying governments want us to know.
The Soviets notoriously threatened to target western journalists covering the Soviet-Afghan War in the 1980s. But so far as I can determine, only three journalists were killed in that war, two of them accidentally. The Soviets appeared to have targeted Charles Thornton of the Arizona Republic, and justified his killing by falsely claiming he was part of a group training Afghan resistance fighters to use anti-aircraft weapons against Soviet aircraft. In other words, only one journalist was deliberately killed by a belligerent army in that 10-year war.
In Iraq, by contrast, dozens of journalists were killed. Quite a number of them appeared to be intentionally targeted by U.S. forces, as was a hotel were many of the journalists stayed. And there’s that infamous TV footage of U.S. helicopter pilots gunning down two Reuters correspondents. The audio indicates those idiots couldn’t tell the difference between cameras with telephoto lenses and weapons.
Another infamous TV tape shows a Reagan-sponsored Contra shooting an American journalist in the back of his head while he lay prone on the ground in spread-eagle position. The Contras thought they were getting away with it; unknown to them, they were caught on tape by a hidden TV crew.
Don’t think for one moment that only Bloody Bolsheviks murder journalists in order to pull a curtain of secrecy over their dark acts. The truth is, America, that beacon of light and hope for the world, is one of the world’s most prolific practitioners of journalist-murder.
Remember what happened when Abu Ghraib torture was first exposed? The Army soldier who exposed the abuses received so many death threats from rightwingers that he had to be protected on an army base by armed guards, and rightwing blogs demanded the journalists who published the story be tried for treason (and then, presumably, be executed after being given a “fair” trial).
Wingers love secrecy and hate the press. They love war, torture, and killing — and don’t like people who “out” them on it. And they’re not exactly enemies of fascist dictators, either. After all, rightwingers are themselves totalitarians at heart, as shown by their perennial efforts to keep Americans from voting in their own country.
So, the Extreme Right probably is celebrating the deaths of these two journalists. For those of us who care about humanity and hope for a better world, this is a day of mourning. They were heroes, and they died serving the causes of truth, freedom, justice, and peace.
Sounds like Roger is projecting his own insecurity again.
In other journalism news, GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney is rationing media interviews like tickets to Olympics sports events — you have to be on his staff’s good side to get one.
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com.....a-strategy
Well, I guess you could say he’s smarter than the Wasilli Princess or The Chump (excuse me, I meant to say The Donald), who — political amateurs they are — will tell anyone (see, e.g., Katy Couric) anything (see, e.g., “I can see Russia from my front porch and that makes me a foreign policy expert”).
I guess Mitt is serious about wanting to be president.
Okay, you can’t really blame a guy who’s champing at the bit to live in the executive mansion and enjoy all the perks that come with it for not wanting to tell the press what he would do to us if we hired him. Any Republican with an ounce of brains wouldn’t want the public to know what he would with the power if he got it. (See, e.g., Scott Walker.) Just put that in the category of Things You Never Put On A Resume Or Tell An Interviewer.
In sharp contrast to the war correspondents who daily risk their lives to tell us the truth about what dictators and democracies, armies and bureaucrats, are doing to innocent civilians and detainees … America’s political reporters generally do a shitty job of covering election campaigns. For the last several election cycles, media campaign coverage has been has devoid of substantive information that would enable voters to decide which politician will screw them least-worst as the Gobi Desert is barren of orchid gardens.
It would be nice if we had some actual media coverage of what these candidates actually intend to dc to us, but don’t hold your breath. All we’ll get from Fox is rightwing propaganda. All we’ll get from the so-called “liberal-biased” MSM is meaningless sound bites.
Different election, same old b.s.
@17 This is what passes for wingnut debate on this blog. Gawd, how did we end up with such lousy trolls?
I love being attacked by righties. It proves I’m getting on their nerves. There’s nothing I like better than giving neuropathy to a winger. If I could stick voodoo pins in a doll and give them hives, I would! Or, better yet, give them genital herpes! But they can catch that on their own, without my help.
@19
all the good trolls are dining on Florida beef tonight at the troll convention.
@20
actually its just fun to kick you around because you post such inane shit…along with your outright lies that you like to spread(like Florida being the #1 beef producer).
youre the guy flying a blimp and Im the guy in the F-86….youre as easy shoot down.
*an easy shoot down
@21 There are no good trolls here. All of our trolls are retards. Especially you.
@22 The only thing you’re kicking is your own balls.
@25
lol..really? seems I have kicked you to pieces over the last few days.
but hey, keep on going…soft targets are fun too! I’m not above padding my score with the likes of you.
NPR @ 12
Could you possibly be more trite?
26
You’re out of your league. You might think about running upstairs for some hot cocoa and nursing your wounds. With any luck, your mom bought some marshmallows for you to float in the cocoa.
@26 “seems I have kicked you to pieces over the last few days”
only in your wet dreams, little boy
@28 “26 You’re out of your league.”
And too infantile to realize it.
It’s been a while since I’ve posted the HA Ad Hoc Posting Rules. I’m HA’s official greeter, so in case we have some new trolls here, who haven’t been indoctrinated yet, here they are:
1. This is a liberal blog.
2. Anyone can post here (except JCH).
3. There is no censorship.
4. As liberals our mission is to verbally kick the living shit out of trolls.
5. No mercy for wingnuts!
6. Our terms are unconditional surrender, and there will be trials.
7. klake is a nazi.
Any questions?
Just for food for thought I thought I’d post the percentage of change in vehicle miles traveled on Washington State Highways. I couldn’t find the numbers for 2010.
O, and there’s this from Sightline
@33
idiot roger rabbit would claim that was the citizen gave themselves a tax cut(not as much gas tax).
Seriously, this is how that fool thinks.
Magoo Rabbit claims to be a lawyer(since dis-barred from practicing in this state) and a judge. Makes you wonder how fucked our legal system really is when you read his ramblings.
Why cities get there way come election day!
Because you get one vote per person and there’s almost double the amount of people living in towns and cities as there are in unincorporated areas.
Before I head off to bed let’s put to bed the myth of rural Eastern Washington. As you can see from the population totals below most people in Eastern Washington live in towns and cities. There are only a handful of counties in Eastern Washington where people living in unincorporated areas outnumber those living in incorporated areas and those counties all have very few residents.
@35
Oops, I’m betting cities get their way.
Anybody see how Rep. Paul Ryan got booed in a town meeting in his own district? Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think that little head case has a future in national politics. I’m not even sure he has a future in Wisconsin politics. His Randian nonsense just ain’t going to get him where his ego wants to take him.