Entertainment! That is, watching the neocons whistling past the graveyard as Americans continue to reject their movement and the GOP (tho at least one Cornerite admits after a Dem won a traditionally Republican seat on Tuesday in Mississippi, that they and their party are “frakked.”) For example, “neo-libertarian” Jeff Goldstein sees fit to post a lengthy “analysis” of the New Left’s fascist tendencies, a perspective he leaps to via approving reference to Jonah Goldberg’s trenchant opus, Liberal Fascism. Is Goldstein really unaware that the New Left is in fact a geriatric ideology, and nearly obsolete? Goldstein also advances the notion that there is some significant connection between the 60s radicals and those who today — you know, 2008, not 1968 — identify as “progressives.”

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Absolutely true, as Brad of Sadly, No! sez: “…pictures speak more than a trillion-kabillion words, so I’ll let them speak for me. Ladies and gentlemen, the Bush Legacy.” And good golly Miss Molly!, has Brad compiled an awesome — if horrifying — “legacy” photo album. (Brad’s very charitable contribution to Jonah Goldberg’s scholarly crisis.)

As a youngster, my far-right and oppressively Roman Catholic parents indoctrinated me to believe all manner of nonsense, and they monitored my television viewing according to criteria that were simply absurd. (Casper the Friendly Ghost ‘toons were out, because they were Communist-inspired.) But very oddly, they paid almost no attention to what I read, especially as I hit adolescence and the local library and bookstores. Thus it happened that at 13, I devoured A. E. van Vogt’s novel, Slan, and forevermore became hooked on the Sci-Fi (or speculative fiction, if you prefer) genre. Voraciously did I consume Asimov*, Robert Silverberg, Robert Heinlein, and Frank Herbert’s Dune series — and somewhat later the Niven/Pournelle collaborations, Greg Bear (especially Queen of Angels, which is way under-rated), and Vernor Vinge. Oh, and so many others, including Nancy Kress’s Beggars in Spain trilogy (which is so amendable to libertarians I learned of and ordered the first in the series from Laissez Faire Books in the 90s).

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Greenwald has been on fire analyzing the document dump the DoD was forced to make to The New YorkTimes — and Josh Marshall has had a bit to say as well — about all the retired military “analysts” spewing forth on the news networks for lo these past many years, who were directed and scripted by the Pentagon as to what the “correct” positions were. (All of which is probably illegal.) But tax-payer subsidized psy-ops is nothing new; the DEA has been doing it for years, as for example by publishing a “debate manual” (originally titled How to Hold Your Own in a Drug Legalization Debate) to use during exchanges with those advocating drug-policy reform. (But the DEA counsels avoiding any debate at all, if possible.)

We’ve been paying for the government to fund lies and propaganda defending its own tyrannical powers since well before Bush and 9/11.
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“Drug Czar” John Walters, of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, finds that Reefer Madness was true after all! That office is about to release a report “finding” that: “using marijuana increases the risk of developing mental disorders by 40 percent…”

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With some new readers here, it seems timely to quote from AoTP’s About page, and ask what folks think about the possibilities therein entertained:

The Bush administration has been extreme enough in its authoritarianism, flagrant law breaking, and flouting of basic human rights norms to cause fractures in the old GOP coalition. There is now the possibility of new political alliances forming. Speaking broadly, it may be that many of the factions in the Democratic Party, and some of the factions that call themselves “libertarian,” collectively represent a kind of loose anti-authoritarian coalition, or rather, the possibility of one. This site aims to facilitate conversation among those factions.

We bring together liberal and libertarian writers who agree on certain politically and morally enlightened essentials. Their discussions here serve to delineate the reasons why basic human rights must always be defended. Their disagreements, by contrast, will illustrate why forming new alliances is hard, and perhaps serve as a reminder as to why new alliances are so rare.

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Marie has been posting some highly disturbing videos of law enforcement officers committing what are or should be crimes against citizens. But at least as bad as those incidents is the fact that when a non-wealthy criminal defendant is assigned an underpaid and over-worked public defender — who has available nothing remotely comparable to the forensic and investigative resources that the state does — odds of wrongful convictions rise dramatically. See these faces:

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Dr. T. gets it right:

Look, it’s really quite simple: If there were a significant population of undecided gray aliens in Pennsylvania, right now Hillary Clinton would be talking fondly about her abduction by aliens and all the life lessons learned on that space ship. She’d be scolding Barack Obama for the way he demeans them. Obama, in turn, would say that he understands their bitterness when the US government has spent decades promising change but instead dissecting their kin in Area 51.

[Important Addendum at End]

You might think that the United States Armed Forces — charged with protecting the Constitution and the rights therein for all Americans — might not itself discriminate on the basis of religion or irreligion. Yet the New York Times reports that when Specialist Jeremy Hall held a meeting last July for atheists and freethinkers at Camp Speicher in Iraq, an officer attended to berate him, shrieking (according to Hall and one other attendee): (more…)

Jesse Walker at Reason’s Hit & Run examines why “The FLDS raid in Texas looks more ludicrous every day.” Not to mention that, as WaPo reports, the original caller claiming to be a 16-year-old rape victim at YFZ apparently is a 33-year-old hoaxer, with a history of such false calls.

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In the Second District of Indiana (in which I have lived on and off for the past almost 20 years), GOP congressional candidate, Tony Zirkle, shoves old Playboys into the shredder to solve the foreclosure and gas price problems. Zirkle: (more…)

Reason’s Jacob Sullum is dueling it out with Cully Stimson over drug policy in the LAT: Part I, Part II. Stimson decrees that drug laws “protect the public good,” public good, of course, being an abstraction that has neither rights nor duties. Those inhere in individuals. (And even if you do not believe in rights, legislating prohibitions on consensual behavior for “the public good” has historically been a great source for emiserating individuals under the aegis of lofty sounding, moralistic rhetoric.)

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By now most have heard about the raid on the The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) compound — Yearning for Zion — in Edlorado, Texas. Over 400 children were removed, each of whom has been assigned a volunteer attorney (h/t to Margherita by email) to serve as guardian ad litem; all the children face the prospect of ending up in a secular foster system utterly foreign to the sheltered lifestyle from whence they were abruptly yanked. And separated from mothers who are agonized and desperately want their sons and daughters back.

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MODERATORS:CHARLIE GIBSON, ABC NEWS
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC NEWS

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Via Crooks and Liars: The McLaughlin Group: Pat Buchanan Says There’s A 50/50 Chance Of Air Strikes Against Iran By Fall.

Zero tolerance reaches new heights of absurdity when kids who cannot possibly understand a sexual move (unless they are victims of sexual abuse) are being disciplined in school as “sex offenders,” and the school is calling in the cops — as with six-year-old Randy Castro who patted a fellow student on the behind. The officers in their report described the lad’s behavior as “Sexual Touching Against Student, Offensive”. And to my sheer astonishment, while reading his column addressing this matter I find that I agree with Mark Steyn in at least one area: (more…)

ABC News recently reported a lot of support for Obama (and some for Hilary) coming from our troops in Iraq. Neocon warmongers undergo neurological synapse disconnects with such news, so they must rhetorically destroy such “wrong” military opinions.

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Madeline Kara Neumann was only 11 when several weeks ago the she died of entirely treatable diabetes, even as her parents eschewed medical science for prayer. According to The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Madeline died due to: (more…)

Glenn Greenwald’s latest book, Great American Hypocrites: Toppling the Big Myths of Republican Politics, release date 4/15, is available now for pre-ordering at Amazon:

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The federal Road Home program was supposed to help those who lost their homes in the Katrina mess rebuild both dwellings and lives. But the private contractor who managed this relief effort — ICF International — is going after those who were “overpaid,” seeking return of an average of $35K from each “overpaid” recipient. ICF is bidding for collection agencies to chase after approximately $175 million from these families. (Oh, and “[o]ne-third of qualified applicants for Road Home help had yet to receive any rebuilding check as of this past week.”)

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This degrading experience must be read to be believed. And what of the fellows with a Prince Albert? Would pliers do the trick? Does the thought make ya squirm, guys? (I mean, if the piercing itself does not, would you want to nervously — and with an audience — perform TSA-approved, quick surgery to remove it?)

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As most will recall, a spate of letters laced with real anthrax spores was sent through the U.S. mail in the months after 9/11, further terrifying an already traumatized nation. The media narrative at the time was that the anthrax bore all the signs of coming from Saddam’s alleged stockpile of the toxin; the opposite was true. (Brief ad click-through.)

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With a h/t to Gavin M. at Sadly, No!, I simply pass along obscene scribblings from the devout Catholic, “pro-life” Mark Noonan — formerly of Blogs for Bush: (more…)

The headline says it all: Pentagon says new Iraq fighting arises from surge’s success

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Below I wrote about my Republican, devout Catholic and former Constitutional Law professor Doug Kmiec’s having endorsed Barack Obama’s candidacy. He has just given an interview to Beliefnet in which he expands on that decision, and says that the responses he’s received have been running 4-1 in his favor. Also, declares Kmiec, my emphasis: (more…)