Oliver Willis is not happy with the Bush Administration's plans for The American War .

This is America's War, one in which our president feels no guilt or cynicism about invoking the heartrending images of September 11th, an event that recast his presidency from the expansion of fundamentalist conservative ideology in our nation to a philosophy of American expansion into the middle east.... The administration’s spin is that Iraqis and the Middle East will welcome America’s expansion. But is it moral for America to expand via military means? The history of our country is intertwined with westward expansion, and while such expansion contributed to American superpower, the treatment of native Americans and African slaves in the course of this expansion was immoral at best – genocidal at its worst "

Oliver's clearly given a lot of thought to the issue and he raises some valid points.

Here is the statement of Ed Rosenthal on his federal marijuana growing conviction today, for which he will be sentenced June 4. He is subject to a mandatory minimum sentence of five years, and possibly up to 40 years.

Statement of Ed Rosenthal on the Medical Marijuana Trial Verdict
January 31, 2003

"I am disappointed in this verdict for several reasons.

"This was an unconstitutional prosecution. It should never have come to trial.

"Once it did, I was not afforded a jury of my peers. They had to bring in 80 people to come up with 12 who would agree to set aside their beliefs on this issue.

"Even so, they would have acquitted me if they had been permitted to hear my story. But I did not get the chance in this trial to defend myself and explain my actions.

"Federal prosecutors made extraordinary efforts to block the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Because the truth is that I was deputized by the City of Oakland to legally grow marijuana for medicinal use by sick or dying patients under California's Prop 215, the Compassionate Use Act, the law that is supposed to guarantee safe and legal access to medicinal marijuana.

"The City of Oakland showed courage in working to come up with a safe, open, and legal system to harmonize California's medical marijuana law with federal law. And I was acting as an official of the city, implementing their program to help patients.

"Had the jury known about the City's attempts to give immunity to their people, including me, it would have acquitted me today.

"The other victims of today's decision are patients -- people who are extremely ill or dying and who are soothed by medicinal marijuana -- because I am only one of many people that they are trying to put in jail for helping sick people, as allowed under our laws.

"For these reasons, we will be asking for a new trial. This verdict will not be allowed to stand.

"The federal government silenced my courtroom defense, but it can't silence the court of public opinion. The opinion of the American public is one of overwhelming support of medicinal uses of marijuana.

"The federal government needs to get this message.

"My case clearly demonstrates that it is time for a national debate on the issue of medical marijuana. California voted to make medical marijuana legal, but the federal government is trying to block that law. The federal government is choosing to prosecute and imprison individuals instead of working directly with the State of California and local cities to resolve the conflicts in medical marijuana law.

"Our elected officials must have the courage to discuss this issue publicly, and then resolve this conflict.

"Because helping sick people should never be a crime.

"For my entire family, thank you all for your support."

--Ed Rosenthal

(Received from DrugSense.Org)

The St. Petersburg Times reports that in the last six months, the Pentagon has ordered 9,640 body bags.

"Right now, we're just replenishing supplies" in military warehouses, said Frank Johnson, a spokesman for the Defense Supply Center in Philadelphia. "It's not necessarily an indication of things to come." But two military suppliers said it is logical to assume that the government is anticipating battlefield casualties."

Here's something we didn't know: "The military shuns the term body bag, which gained widespread usage during the Vietnam War, when 58,000 American military personnel died. Instead, the military began calling them "human remains pouches" during the 1991 Persian Gulf war. They are made of vinyl and cost the government about $38 a pouch."

The two Dallas detectives involved in the fake drug scandal also worked federal cases. The federal cases may now be tainted.

The scandal involved the officers' use of informants who were paid more than $200,000. to distribute fake drugs while passing them off as real.

"The officers' work through the Police Department led state prosecutors to dismiss more than 85 state felony drug cases.... The latest disclosure raises questions about whether federal cases may have been tainted and if so, how many."

Major kudos to the Fort Lauderdale Police Department which has announced they will videotape all homicide interrogations from start to finish to reduce the chance of a false confession.

"Fort Lauderdale is the first large police department in South Florida to videotape murder interrogations in their entirety, a reform urged by false-confession experts nationwide to prevent coercion, improper promises of leniency, off-the-record threats and beatings by detectives."

''We're looking forward to it and welcome the new procedure,'' said Capt. Bob Lamberti, who heads the Fort Lauderdale Criminal Investigation unit. ``We think it's in everyone's best interest -- attorneys, prosecutors, judges, detectives, the whole criminal justice system.''

"The Fort Lauderdale department studied other police agencies and concluded that ''the advantages of taping far outweighed any perceived disadvantages,'' according to a statement"

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's change in ethics rules are angering watchdogs.

One of Rep. Tom DeLay's first maneuvers as majority leader was to engineer a change of House ethics rules so charities now may pay for lawmakers' travel and meals whenever they participate in charitable fund-raising events. The change came as DeLay is organizing a Florida golf tournament that will benefit a project in his district south of Houston. The tournament is expected to raise more than $1 million -- some of it coming in six-figure donations -- from lobbyists and corporate officials who have legislation before Congress."

We wrote more about this and the Republican hypocrisy involved here.

We just watched a thirty minute one-on-one interview with Gary Hart on The Aaron Harber Show on Denver's public television station. He was terrific. Our favorite part, of course, was his absolute trouncing of Ashcroft and the Patriot Act. Hart said Ashcroft comes the closest of anyone in his lifetime to J. Edgar Hoover.

Hart blasted the Government for its treatment of the detainees, including those at Guantanamo Bay. He said by detaining American citizens without due process, including access to lawyers and hearings, we are violating our own laws.

He said it's wrong for the Government not to tell the American people how many detainees are being held. There's no reason not to, except they won't want to answer the next question, "who are they?"

Hart said there will be another major terrorist attack, most likely a nuclear device in a major city. He also said smallpox and cyberwarfare are possibilities.

One thing that continues to perplex him is why, after September 11, no heads rolled. No one was forced to resign. The Government had warning. His committee's report came out in January of 2001 and warned of a terrorist attack on America. On September 5, he gave a speech in Montreal, and the headline of the Montreal Paper on September 6 was "Hart Predicts Terrorist Attack." Yet, America did nothing. There's been no accountability. We were more concerned with scandal and Gary Condit.

You will be able to watch the interview shortly anytime you want, 24/7, on the Aaron Harber Show website.

TAPPED leads us to a commentary addressing whether John Ashcroft's press conferences on Moussaoui, John Walker Lindh, Yaser Hamdi and Jose Padilla violated government ethics rules. They do.

"Many of Ashcroft's statements, in all four cases, had no serious prosecutorial or law enforcement purpose. Their apparent purpose was to serve as part of a public relations campaign - with the intent of increasing political support for the actions of the administration, and silencing potential critics. "

But read the whole thing, you'll learn why prosecutors are so rarely disciplined for their misconduct and why our only likely recourse against Ashcroft is to vote against the Republicans in 2004.

Via Political Wire:

"Of the seven congressional Democrats who are running for president in 2004 or have indicated they might run, Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts had the most liberal voting record last year, and Sen. Bob Graham of Florida had the most conservative," according to the National Journal's new vote ratings. (See chart for vote ratings over the past 20 years.)"

Don't miss Kip Manley of Long Story, Short Pier on the war in Iraq. (Thanks to Patrick of Electrolite for leading us there.) Here's a short quote:

Forget the shameless politicization of an unprecedented terrorist attack. Forget that every informed opinion says that an attack will trigger reprisals here at home that we are not ready for. Forget the broken promises to firefighters and cops, forget the unnecessary, clumsy, and disruptive invasion of civil rights by the largest and most expensive government ever, forget the staggering arrogance and sobering ineptitude on the international stage. Wipe it all off the table and send it smashing to the floor. I don't care. Sit down across the now-empty table from me and tell me how on earth I can live with an administration that proposes to do this in my name--

We are very saddened tonight by the news of the conviction of author and medical marijuana activist Ed Rosenthal in San Francisco. He will be sentenced Tuesday to a mandatory minimum ten year sentence. The maximum sentence is life.

Please visit Green-Aid for the details of the case and trial.

Hopefully this will be the galvinizing case for the need to reform our marijuana laws. The media coverage of the trial, prior to the jury's decision, has been nothing less than sympathetic to Ed and the need for a functional marijuana policy. From the above-linked AP article:

The verdicts were a victory in the federal government's battle against California's 1996 voter-approved medical marijuana law. Rosenthal's arrest last year was among a string of Drug Enforcement Administration raids on medical marijuana suppliers in California.

Under strict orders from U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, Rosenthal was never able to tell the jury that he was growing marijuana as "an officer" for the city of Oakland's medical marijuana program.

Oakland's program and others throughout California were authorized under Proposition 215. Eight other states also allow the sick and dying to smoke or grow marijuana with a doctor's recommendation.

But federal authorities do not recognize those laws.

"There is no such thing as medical marijuana," said Richard Meyer, a DEA spokesman. "We're Americans first, Californians second."

Jury foreman Charles Sackett III said outside court that jurors were following federal law in finding Rosenthal guilty, but he personally hoped the verdict would be overturned.

"We had no legal wiggle room," Sackett said.

Our thoughts are with Ed and his family tonight. Ed remains free until his sentencing on Tuesday. See our prior post here.

It's that time of year again....Journalist and historian Eric Alterman, columnist for The Nation and author of MSNBC's Altercation and the brand new book What Liberal Media? is revising his bookmarked links on Altercation. Here's how it works:

       The Blogosphere is changing so rapidly that it’s easy to miss some of the best sites. That’s why I’m so lucky to have Jeralyn (www.talkleft.com) volunteering again, to take your nominations for who deserves the high-powered MSNBC.com-driven slots on the right. Send her (not me!) your nominations at alterlinks@aol.com. Don’t stuff ballot boxes. It’s merit driven, once she is aware of you. (Though if you really want extra credit, I’d consider a link to both Altercation and What Liberal Media.com. Did I mention there’s a pdf file with the first chapter of the book there?

Three additional rules Eric has to be listed: Your site must be a weblog; You must have a link to Altercation on your front page, and it's for progressive sites only. There is no 'other side.'

Again, mail your suggestions to us at alterlinks@aol.com.