Busy!
Topic: Busy, busy week!
Lots happening this week but I have been a little slogged in the office this week so I haven't been able to post as much as I ought to be.

The DSM continues to gain steam on the web. Rep. Conyers is having a hearing in Congress as I type this with people Like Former Ambassador Joe Wilson, a CIA analyst Ray McGovern, Cindy Sheehan who has denounced the War and called Bush a liar (Her son was killed there) as well as a constitutional attorney named John Bonifaz. Should be interesting.

You haven't seen much in the mainstream due to that friggin Michael Jackson verdict but I hope you will see something tomorrow. Howard Kurtz has a good column on the Washington Post wondering why the media wasn't following up the story when it first broke some six weeks ago. The overall impression that I am getting is that it just wasn't news...As in it wasn't like some new revelation to them. Which is true, the memo had no new news in it even to me.

The news IS that the rest of America (those of us who don't blog or don't follow all this shit) have no freaking idea what the Downing Street Memo is. I ask people about it often and it is rarely heard about or known about but that is beginning to change. See, the issue is that the Administration clearly BSed their way into this but it was an intangable, unprovable and now we have a shred of evidence. The American public collectively isn't on the watch and this is just the kind of thing we need to know about so that maybe (just maybe) something can be done, or perhaps someone can be held accountable for this collosal failure in Iraq.

A rare positve note comes out of Congress in that the House voted to curb some power in the Patriot Act lastnight...From The Washington Post:

"The House handed President Bush the first defeat in his effort to preserve the broad powers of the USA Patriot Act, voting yesterday to curtail the FBI's ability to seize library and bookstore records for terrorism investigations.

Bush has threatened to veto any measure that weakens those powers. The surprise 238 to 187 rebuke to the White House was produced when a handful of conservative Republicans, worried about government intrusion, joined with Democrats who are concerned about personal privacy.

One provision of the Patriot Act makes it possible for the FBI to obtain a wide variety of personal records about a suspected terrorist -- including library transactions -- with an order from a secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, where the government must meet a lower threshold of proof than in criminal courts.

Under the House change, officials would have to get search warrants from a judge or subpoenas from a grand jury to seize records about a suspect's reading habits."

Good news to be sure...One part down...

In other news worth knowing about...head over to DrugWarRant.com for Pete's excellent coverage of the Hinchey-Rohrabacher amendment that didn't pass yesterday in Congress. The Raich ruling came down in the supreme court last week nad has really lit a small fire under the whole medical marijuna debate as well as the drug war in general. I would talk more about that stuff but why when Pete does it so damn well!

The more people talking about the DSM and the failures of the Drug War and medical marijuana and states rights the better. It is unbelievable how many things are affected and could be affected by this ridiculous drug war we insist on. The more people know the more power they can have and the more changes for the better can be conceived for the future.

Also, Americablog.com (a good palce to go anyways) is selling Downing Street Memo T-Shirts should anyone be THAT into this issue.