Category: reason

This is a confession of failure. America’s
longest war is nowhere near its end. Sheldon Richman points to a
draft agreement between the Obama administration and President
Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan. If it is finalized, U.S. troops will
remain in that country indefinitely — instead of being withdrawn at
the end of 2014, as the administration has said.

View this article.

I, for one, welcome the Denver
Post‘s announcement that it will have a new editor covering
the marijuana beat full-time. The paper promises “a mix of news,
entertainment and culture stories” which sounds like a healthy
range of coverage for an intoxicant that is rapidly moving from the
counterculture into the mainstream with Eric Holder-defying speed.
Not long ago—and still in many places—marijuana was a matter for
the police blotter. But can it be long before we see newspapers
running reviews and holiday recommendations for the discriminating
palate?

Denver Post News Director Kevin Dale
writes:

We have written extensively about the research on marijuana, the
regulation, the wrangling in the legislature, cooking with
marijuana and growing it. The new year will bring all angles
together in a way that is challenging and exciting for us. We plan
to do what we do with any major story: throw our best muscle,
creative minds and ingenuity at the project.

It’s not surprising that the news we would be hiring an editor
to oversee the project swirled around the journalism and marijuana
community. …

We’re going to have some fun – with a mix of news, entertainment
and culture stories.

Having worked for a daily newspaper, I suspect that the
Post will have little trouble finding in-house talent
familar with the new beat. Lots of Americans have
experience with marijuana (42.4 percent of us, as of 2008,
says the World Health Organization)—positive or at least
non-scary experience, that puts the lie to the decades-old
fearmongering about the stuff eroding our inhibitions and
destroying the fabric of American society.

Besides, a little inhibition-eroding ain’t so bad.

Such experience has nudged Americans way ahead of institutions
like government and old-line media, with full legalization now
drawing
58 percent support, according to Gallup. The Department of
Justice will need some time to catch up. The Denver Post
seems to have arrived. At least, it will have arrived when the
paper starts holding marijuana tastings and making suggestions
about
something special to bring to that…umm…holiday pot
luck.

Sorry.

In an
interview this week, investigative journalism Hall of Famer and

still-associate editor at the Washington Post Bob
Woodward
told Larry King that NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden was
nobody’s hero, and anyway should have come to Woodward
instead of the likes of Glenn Greenwald:

“I wish [Snowden] had come to me instead of others, particularly
The Guardian,” Woodward said in an interview on
“Politicking with Larry King” that airs Thursday on Hulu.
“I would have said to him ‘let’s not reveal who you are. Let’s make
you a protected source and give me time with this data and let’s
sort it out and present it in a coherent way.'”

If you were thinking to yourself, “Wait, didn’t the
Washington Post’s Barton Gellman publish a lot of
Snowden-sourced scoops?”, or if you merely savor a little in-house
journalistic fratricide, then you might enjoy Gellman’s
retort to The Huffington Post:

“The ‘others’ he dismissed
include [The Washington Post’s] Greg Miller, Julie Tate, Carol
Leonnig, Ellen Nakashima, Craig Whitlock, Craig Timberg, Steven
Rich and Ashkan Soltani — all of whom are building on the Snowden
archive with me to land scoop after scoop,” Gellman continued. “I
won’t get into why Snowden came to me or didn’t come to Bob. But
the idea of keeping Snowden anonymous, or of waiting for one
‘coherent’ story, suggests that Bob does not understand my source
or the world he lived in.”

A source on deep background indicated that an old man could be
seen near an Arlington strip mall waving his fist and yelling at a
cloud.

Some past Reason writings on Robert Redford’s stunt
double: “The
Trouble with Bob Woodward,” and “From
Bob Woodward to Judith Miller.”

I’ve got
a new column up at
Time.com. It’s about the recent arrest of Rep. Trey Radel
(R-Fla.) for possession of cocaine. Radel has already pleaded
guilty and has pledged to go to rehab. His arrest should make us
think twice about the arbitrary distinctions between legal and
illegal drugs and the social stigma that attaches to the latter.
Toronto Mayor Rob Ford was well-known for being a drunken lout, but
it took evidence of him smoking crack for him to lose many of his
powers. Similarly, Radel’s drinking didn’t raise eyebrows even as
his buying a few grams of coke did.

In an age in which we are expected to use legal drugs (such as
beer) and prescription medications (Adderall) responsibly, it’s
time to extend that same notion to currently illegal substances
whose effects and properties are widely misunderstood. Indeed, the
effects of coke, heroin, and the rest are a mystery partly because
their outlaw status makes it difficult both to research them and
have honest discussions about them.

Trey Radel has announced that he’ll be taking a leave of
absence from Congress while he enters rehab. Perhaps he does need
to sober up – that’s really for him and his family to decide – but
it’s far from clear that his problem is particular to cocaine or
illegal drugs. Indeed, in announcing his plans, he didn’t blame
cocaine for his troubles but “the
disease of alcoholism,” which he says led him to make
really bad decisions. And alcohol, after all, is perfectly
legal.

Read more.

I’ve got
a new column up at
Time.com. It’s about the recent arrest of Rep. Trey Radel
(R-Fla.) for possession of cocaine. Radel has already pleaded
guilty and has pledged to go to rehab. His arrest should make us
think twice about the arbitrary distinctions between legal and
illegal drugs and the social stigma that attaches to the latter.
Toronto Mayor Rob Ford was well-known for being a drunken lout, but
it took evidence of him smoking crack for him to lose many of his
powers. Similarly, Radel’s drinking didn’t raise eyebrows even as
his buying a few grams of coke did.

In an age in which we are expected to use legal drugs (such as
beer) and prescription medications (Adderall) responsibly, it’s
time to extend that same notion to currently illegal substances
whose effects and properties are widely misunderstood. Indeed, the
effects of coke, heroin, and the rest are a mystery partly because
their outlaw status makes it difficult both to research them and
have honest discussions about them.

Trey Radel has announced that he’ll be taking a leave of
absence from Congress while he enters rehab. Perhaps he does need
to sober up – that’s really for him and his family to decide – but
it’s far from clear that his problem is particular to cocaine or
illegal drugs. Indeed, in announcing his plans, he didn’t blame
cocaine for his troubles but “the
disease of alcoholism,” which he says led him to make
really bad decisions. And alcohol, after all, is perfectly
legal.

Read more.

The Senate
struck down a rule requiring 60 votes to cut off a filibuster
of an appeals court judicial nominations, voting 52-48 along party
lines to disregard it, effectively overturning more than 200 years
of Senate precedent, not only on the judicial filibuster, as the
Washington Post
notes, but by moving to change the chamber’s rules without the
traditional two-thirds majority in support, something previously
done only to alter relatively minor rules. It’s rules all the way
down.

Democrats insist the rules change won’t affect nominations to
the Supreme Court, but Republicans say that’s exactly what they’ll
do if a Republican president sends a Republican Senate a nomination
for the Supreme Court. The Senate’s fought this fight before
without pulling the trigger. The Washington Post provides
some
context:

Reid’s move is a reversal of his position in 2005, when
he was minority leader and fought the GOP majority’s bid to change
rules on a party-line vote. A bipartisan, rump caucus led by McCain
defused that effort.

At the time, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was the No. 2 GOP leader
and helped push the effort to eliminate filibusters on the George
W. Bush White House’s judicial selections. Eight years later,
McConnell, now the minority leader, has grown publicly furious over
Reid’s threats to use the same maneuver.

Democrats contend that this GOP minority, with a handful of
senators elected as tea party heroes, has overrun McConnell’s
institutional inclinations and served as a procedural roadblock on
most rudimentary things. According to the Congressional Research
Service, from 1967 through 2012, majority leaders had to file
motions to try to break a filibuster of a judicial nominee 67 times
— and 31 of those, more than 46 percent — occurred in the last five
years of an Obama White House and Democratic majority.

Republicans contend that their aggressive posture is merely a
natural growth from a decades-long war over the federal judiciary,
noting that what prompted the 2005 rules showdown were at least 10
filibusters of GOP judicial nominees. To date, only a handful of
Obama’s judicial selections have gone to a vote and been
filibustered by the minority.

The ability of a minority to thwart the agenda and will of the
party in power is a feature, not a bug, of the constitutional
order, but “majority rules” is, unsurprisingly, popular with the
majority.

Two days before a
suspected U.S. drone strike killed a senior member of the
Taliban-linked Haqqani network in Pakistan, the
Associated Press reported that France, Germany, Greece, Italy,
the Netherlands, Poland, and Spain had formed what French Defense
Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian has called a “club” to develop drones
to rival American and Israeli UAVs.

From the AP:

Some Europeans fear they are falling behind in an area that may
determine military aviation’s future. Many aerospace experts
believe the days of piloted fighter aircraft are numbered. In June,
three major European defense contractors — pan-European EADS,
Italy’s Finmeccanica and France’s Dassault — called for a concerted
effort by Europe to catch up.

It is not surprising that officials in Europe want to compete
with American and Israeli drones. UAVs are widely expected to be an
increasingly common feature of future warfare, and Europeans will
want to keep their militaries competitive with not only the
American and Israeli militaries, but also the militaries of
countries that have also been developing drones such as Iran and
China.

Israel is the world’s
largest exporter of drones. One of the most popular, the
Heron, a
drone developed by a division of Israel Aerospace
Industries, is used by militaries around the world, and has
logged over
15,000 hours in Afghanistan.

As well as selling drones abroad, Israel has used UAVs to carry
out targeted killings and conduct surveillance.

Likewise, the U.S. has used drones to carry out strikes against
Taliban and Al Qaeda suspects abroad, which may constitute
war crimes.

A few days ago, Iranian officials unveiled
what Tehran says is Iran’s biggest drone so far, the “Fotros,”
which reportedly has a range of 1,200 miles, meaning that it could
reach Israel.

Last year, the Chinese unveiled the Wing Loong
drone, which is capable of carrying missiles and looks a lot like
the U.S. Predator drone. A
recent report from the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review
Commission notes that the similarity has led some analysts “to
speculate Chinese espionage may have contributed to the Wing
Loong’s development,” citing
this article in a footnote.   

For more from Reason.com on drones click here.

Two days before a
suspected U.S. drone strike killed a senior member of the
Taliban-linked Haqqani network in Pakistan, the
Associated Press reported that France, Germany, Greece, Italy,
the Netherlands, Poland, and Spain had formed what French Defense
Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian has called a “club” to develop drones
to rival American and Israeli UAVs.

From the AP:

Some Europeans fear they are falling behind in an area that may
determine military aviation’s future. Many aerospace experts
believe the days of piloted fighter aircraft are numbered. In June,
three major European defense contractors — pan-European EADS,
Italy’s Finmeccanica and France’s Dassault — called for a concerted
effort by Europe to catch up.

It is not surprising that officials in Europe want to compete
with American and Israeli drones. UAVs are widely expected to be an
increasingly common feature of future warfare, and Europeans will
want to keep their militaries competitive with not only the
American and Israeli militaries, but also the militaries of
countries that have also been developing drones such as Iran and
China.

Israel is the world’s
largest exporter of drones. One of the most popular, the
Heron, a
drone developed by a division of Israel Aerospace
Industries, is used by militaries around the world, and has
logged over
15,000 hours in Afghanistan.

As well as selling drones abroad, Israel has used UAVs to carry
out targeted killings and conduct surveillance.

Likewise, the U.S. has used drones to carry out strikes against
Taliban and Al Qaeda suspects abroad, which may constitute
war crimes.

A few days ago, Iranian officials unveiled
what Tehran says is Iran’s biggest drone so far, the “Fotros,”
which reportedly has a range of 1,200 miles, meaning that it could
reach Israel.

Last year, the Chinese unveiled the Wing Loong
drone, which is capable of carrying missiles and looks a lot like
the U.S. Predator drone. A
recent report from the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review
Commission notes that the similarity has led some analysts “to
speculate Chinese espionage may have contributed to the Wing
Loong’s development,” citing
this article in a footnote.   

For more from Reason.com on drones click here.

I don’t know what holiday
dinners are like at Michael Bloomberg’s house, but I suspect
there’s an awful lot of picking at food while the windbag at the
head of the table lectures the assembled guests about why he’s
right and they’re all idiots. That’s the message I get from his pet
Mayors Against Illegal Guns organization, which wants its loyal
minions, if there are any, to sit down to their Thanksgiving feasts
and immediately start fights with relatives they haven’t seen in a
year about gun control. All you need is a handy list of tendentious
talking points—and a shitload of patience from Cousin Bob, who
rebuilds old pistols for fun and just wrapped himself around half a
bottle of Jack Daniels.

On the Mayors Against Illegal Guns’ “Demand Action” site, the

tone for a holiday frolic is set by the Talking Turkey About Guns
page:

Everyone has friends and relatives with strong opinions and
shaky facts. You can help set the table straight — all you need is
this simple guide to Talking Turkey about guns!

The page adds:

This Thanksgiving, when talk around the table turns to politics
and current events, you can help set the record straight on some of
the most common myths about guns.

Cuz what everybody needs in the midst of what’s likely to be
family chatter, or maybe a heated argument about Obamacare for
those who delve into politics over the good china, is a chipper
grad student spouting five non sequitur factoids about firearms,
with no larger knowledge about the subject, or even links to other
information.

Seriously? You’re going to ask people to plunge into a fraught
topic, about which gun rights advocates tend to be extremely
well-informed, with acontextual tidbits like:

FACT: We know that gun background checks work.
Since it was created in 1998, the system has blocked more than 2
million sales to criminals and other dangerous people.

What happens when one of the gun owners at the
table takes time from the real conversation to point out that those

blocked sales almost never result in prosecutions because,
according to the Justice Department itself, “the prohibiting
factors are often minor or based on incidents that occurred many
years in the past”?

Background checks catch people busted for pot or a bar fight
decades ago. Real criminals don’t go to gun stores. But you won’t
know that from a blurb on the Internet.

Tuccille family gatherings are incomplete without howling
discussions about topics of great import, such as health care and
the time septuagenarian Uncle Tony beat the crap out of three
would-be muggers. While he was drunk. We like our arguments, a lot.
But, unlike at the Bloomberg residence, and like at a lot of other
homes, I suspect, nobody gets to lecture—it’s give and take, and
you need to come prepared. If all you have is a short list of
talking points, there’re gonna be two turkeys carved at
the table.

John
Kerry said the US and Afghanistan had
reached an agreement for a security partnership after the 2014
withdrawal of combat troops, pending approval at a grand council of
local leaders. At that meeting, the term-limited Hamid Karzai
suggested the deal with the US not go into effect until after next
year’s presidential election.

From Reuters:

Afghan President Hamid Karzai told his countrymen on
Thursday a vital security pact with the United States should not
come into effect until after next year’s election and conceded
there was little trust between the two countries.

About 2,500 tribal elders and political leaders from all
around Afghanistan gathered in the capital, Kabul, for a
Loya Jirga, or grand council, to debate whether to allow U.S.
troops to stay after the 2014 drawdown of foreign
forces.

Karzai
told the council he didn’t trust the Americans, and that they
didn’t trust him. A delegation from Afghanistan, meanwhile, ha s

reportedly met in Pakistan with the former deputy leader of the
Taliban, according to anonymous officials from those two
countries.

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