Author: Pensito Editors

In the early 1980s, when I lived in Charlotte, agricultural statistics were released that left a lot of straight-laced North Carolinians in shock: the state’s number one cash crop was not tobacco, which brought in $1 billion in revenue annually, it was homegrown marijuana, which produced upwards of $2 billion for Tarheel growers.

What trendsetters we were. New figures out from pot advocates indicate that marijuana is the number one cash crop in the country:

U.S. growers produce nearly $35 billion worth of marijuana annually, making the illegal drug the country’s largest cash crop, bigger than corn and wheat combined, an advocate of medical marijuana use said in a study released on Monday.

The report, conducted by Jon Gettman, a public policy analyst and former head of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, also concluded that five U.S. states produce more than $1 billion worth of marijuana apiece: California, Tennessee, Kentucky, Hawaii and Washington.

California’s production alone was about $13.8 billion, according to Gettman, who waged an unsuccessful six-year legal battle to force the government to remove marijuana from a list of drugs deemed to have no medical value.

Also heard but can’t confirm that the average age of pot-smokers is now 45 years old and older.

Foregone conclusions: Without the assistance of Our Liberal Media, Pres. Bush and his political handlers could not get away with an extravagant charade like the one we’re witnessing now:

[It’s] hard to decide which is more pathetic: Bush’s “listening tour,” or the national media, which have cravenly agreed to call it by that name and cover it within that frame.

This “tour” has required no tourism. It has taken Bush from the Oval Office, over to Foggy Bottom, back to the West Wing, then over to the Pentagon, and back again to the White House. But the media have treated it like Lenin’s trip to the Finland Station, or the Beatles coming to America. Wow! Lookit him go! He’s even taken his fingers out of his ears! That bubble boy sure can listen!

You can imagine the staff meetings in the days leading up to the Iraq Study Group report. “We gotta give the appearance of paying attention to the report, Mr. President. We gotta let some time pass after Baker’s big show, until some serial killer or anorexic distracts the country again. In the meantime, we gotta give those newsie jerkoffs something to cover. Snow can only snow ’em for a day or two. We need action. Photo ops. Soundbites. A storyline…. Wait a minute, I’ve got it: we’ll put you on a listening tour. Yeah, that’s the ticket. They’ll eat it up. A listening tour… and A New Way Forward!”

I’m not surprised that Bush has tried such a brazen stunt; I’m just stunned that the media has fallen for it so frictionlessly. Maybe it’s just the time of the year; perhaps the press corps’s just preoccupied with playing Secret Santa.

It is amazaing that, with the exception of Keith Olbermann, no one in the Gang of 500, not a single talking head or pundit, has voiced any doubts about the president’s campaign to convince Americans that he’s in the throes of decision-making about Iraq.

As we suggested here and here, the decision about what to do will be based on what best suits the interests of George W. Bush — and among the choices available, there is only one that suits his personal and political aims: sending in more troops.

Armand Hammer, CEO of Occidental Petroleum,a staunch supporter of presidents Nixon, Reagan and Bush — and long-suspected Soviet spy — died on December 10, 1990, in Los Angeles. He was 92 years old.

Hammer grew up in New York and received a medical degree from Columbia University, but never practiced medicine. Instead, in the 1920s, he went into the pharmaceuticals business in the newly formed Soviet Union.

His lifelong association with the Soviet government raised suspicions about his allegiance to the United States. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Hammer’s name was reportedly found in KGB files that described him as an agent vliyana, an “agent of influence” in the United States for the Soviet government. However (and not surprisingly), definitive proof that he was a Soviet spy has never been produced, and so his political legacy in international relations remains a riddle.

His record as an agent for the Republican Party is crystal clear, however. In 1976, Hammer was convicted on federal misdemeanor charges for funnelling hush money to the Watergate burglars during the Nixon years.

These convictions became problematic a decade later when Hammer embarked on a quixotic mission to be awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for his private diplomacy with the Soviets. After being nominated, however, he was thwarted by the fact that no previous recipient had ever had a criminal record.

Hammer requested a pardon from then-Pres. Reagan, sweetening the deal with an offer to donate $1.3 million to Reagan’s presidential library, which was to be built in Simi Valley, Calif. On his application, Hammer listed the reason for the requested pardon as “innocence.” When the Reagan team looked into his convictions, however, they found that he had pleaded guilty to the charges in order to get a better deal, and was therefore ineligible for the pardon on the basis of innocence.

Because Pres. Reagan failed to deliver the pardon, Hammer rescinded the donation to the library. The library sued to get the money but was unsuccessful.

Hammer soon got his pardon from Reagan’s successor, George H.W. Bush, however. At the end of Bush’s successful campaign for president, Hammer gave $110,000 to the Republican National Commmittee to allay campaign costs. He updated his pardon application, changing the reason for the request from “innocence” to “compassion.” On August 14, 1989, eight months after Bush was elected, he issued a full pardon for Hammer.

It was all for naught, however. Hammer lost the 1989 Nobel Peace to the Dalai Lama.

Hammer was born on May 21, 1898.

[Wiki, Counterpunch]

GOP Rep. Chris Shays, who is in the fight of his life to save his seat in liberal Connecticut, proved his Republican bona fides this week by comparing the Foley scandal and its cover-up by his party’s leaders in the House with the drowning accident caused by Sen. Ted Kennedy at Chappaquiddick 37 years ago:

When the congressional page scandal broke last month, Democrats across the country saw a chance to lambaste Republican leadership – including [Shays’ Democratic opponent] Diane Farrell, who called on House Speaker Dennis Hastert to step down.

But when Sen. Edward M. Kennedy came to Connecticut last week to help her campaign, Rep. Christopher Shays hit back.

“I know the speaker didn’t go over a bridge and leave a young person in the water, and then have a press conference the next day,” said Shays, R-4th District, referring to the 1969 incident in which the Massachusetts Democrat drove a car that plunged into the water and a young campaign worker died.

“Dennis Hastert didn’t kill anybody,” he added.

Over the past two weeks, as a bizarre defense of the actions of Rep. Mark Foley’s predatory emails to House pages, Republicans have been bringing up the tragedy involving the young senator and the woman who drowned, Mary Jo Kopechne.

It’s too bad that Democrats don’t think like Republicans, or they would counter by reminding Republicans that First Lady Laura Bush also killed someone in her youth.