A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day...so check back often.
In the News: (Registration may be required to read some stories)
Democrats Capture Control of Virginia Senate - Democrats wrested control of the Senate from the Republicans in yesterday's legislative elections, picking up the four seats they needed to give them a majority of at least 21 to 19 and end a decade of GOP dominance in the chamber. (READ MORE)
Democrats Split Over Bill Affecting Backers - In early June, as the Senate Finance Committee began examining how a new breed of Wall Street titan could be paying a special low tax rate on executives' salaries, one of the richest of them, hedge fund manager Steven A. Cohen of SAC Capital Advisors, cut the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee... (READ MORE)
Conferees Set Pentagon Budget - House and Senate negotiators yesterday approved a $459 billion Defense Department appropriations bill that pays for weapons systems and annual military expenses but, at the insistence of Democrats, includes only a quarter of the $196 billion President Bush sought to continue fighting next year in... (READ MORE)
A Story of Surveillance - His first inkling that something was amiss came in summer 2002 when he opened the door to admit a visitor from the National Security Agency to an office of AT&T in San Francisco. (READ MORE)
White House Hails Renewed Ties With Europe - Shortly after Angela Merkel became chancellor of Germany two years ago, President Bush told her about the frequent videoconferences he held with then-Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain. Bush wanted to know: Would Merkel be interested in doing the same? (READ MORE)
Jihadist Training Ground? - A recitation of the Koran's first chapter by 15-year-old student Muhammad Asher carries a melodic, almost hypnotic rhythm, as his voice rises and falls in the cadence of classical Arabic. (READ MORE)
House Measure Rejects 'Amnesty'- More than 80 House Democrats and Republicans yesterday teamed up to propose a new immigration-enforcement bill, saying they reject the Senate's two attempts at "amnesty" and signaling that only an enforcement measure can pass this Congress. (READ MORE)
Security Review Changes Panned - Lawmakers from both parties yesterday challenged the Bush administration over a draft presidential order that they say will undermine a law designed to improve security reviews of foreign companies seeking to buy U.S. firms. (READ MORE)
Surge in Oil Prices not Just Speculation - Oil prices verging on $100 a barrel are the result of skimpy supplies colliding with strong growth in China, the United States and the rest of the world, and not just the work of speculators, the nation's chief energy forecaster concluded yesterday. (READ MORE)
From the Front:
Yellowhammering Afghanistan: Getting past the gruesome - We have a combat stress team here at Camp Vulcan today. Their presence is the result of an incident involving one of our district teams that you may have read about in the news earlier this week. During a routine mission (I'm not even sure what "routine" is anymore), their convoy struck an IED. The Afghan National Police Ford Ranger pickup struck the device as the bed of the truck was on top of it. It killed the four ANP traveling in the back of the truck and wounded the two ANP in the cab. It also shook up - physically and emotionally - the team that was traveling with them. (READ MORE)
LTC Richard Phillips: I'm Back! - Contrary to popular opinion, I am alive and well at FOB Salerno, Afghanistan. I have not been in an "undisclosed location" with the Vice President, I've been on R&R leave in Germany with my lovely wife. I'll post again soon, with some thoughts on R&R, travel in Theater and a look forward to the next few months on FOB Salerno. While I was gone I invited some of my co-workers to blog on my behalf. I thought you might enjoy hearing another perspective on life at FOB Salerno. (READ MORE)
IraqPundit: When Good News Is Bad News - While the following good news stories may come as a great disappointment to many people, we Iraqis welcome the developments: This Arabic story says Baghdad officials decided to reopen 10 main roads in the city by removing concrete barriers. This is in addition to last week's reopening of Palestine Street, which had been blocked for security reasons. (READ MORE)
Mohammed: Why Southern Iraq Won't "Awaken" Like Anbar - There is growing popular dissatisfaction with the poor performance of local administrations across Iraq’s southern provinces and the growing pressures practiced by clerics who are trying to Islamize the society. To make matters worse are the atrocities committed by some militias and the bitter fighting among ruling parties in which ordinary citizens pay the highest price. I think clerics and politicians in Prime Minister Maliki’s United Iraq Alliance realize this dissatisfaction may lead to an awakening movement similar to the one that has taken place in Anbar province in the western part of Iraq. In order to make a comparison, and try to predict what’s likely to happen in the south, one needs to first understand exactly what happened in Anbar. (READ MORE)
Badger 6: Marching Through Ramadi - Butterfly Wife brings us this story she got from MNF-I. A parade of the Iraqi Security Forces that stands in stark contrast to what it was like last year at this time. There is a long road to go here in Iraq, but sometimes, when I read this, and I think of driving though Ramadi, I think of walking around the city my very first night out on our own, hearing the 25mm Bushmaster rip through night, digging up explosives, and wondering what the hell was going to happen when the sun came up, I smile, and I get a little giddy. (READ MORE)
The GALLIVANT: The other Iraq - For the past week, I’ve been traveling through Iraqi Kurdistan — the “other Iraq,” as the region touts itself. It is a semi-autonomous region mostly populated by Kurds. It has its own government, much like a state does in the United States. It flies its own flag and has its own militia. Folks here are not Arab. They are Kurds, a proud population that speaks its own language and has long been proud of its ethnic identity. Saddam Hussein had oppressed them, even using lethal gas against the people here. This is a place that reveres the United States and is thankful for the U.S. role in liberating the region during the 1991 U.S.-led war. Kurdistan is indeed the other Iraq. It is a different world. (READ MORE)
On the Web:
The Monkey Tennis Centre: The opinion polls aren't settled either - "BBC environment reporter Matt McGrath says the poll suggests that in many countries people are more willing than their governments to contemplate serious changes to their lifestyles to combat global warming." 22,000 people in 21 countries were interviewed for the poll, and the figures given for the UK respondents were fairly representative of those for all countries, with more than 80 per cent agreeing that lifestyle changes were 'probably' or 'definitely' necessary. Strange, then, that a separate poll conducted in Britain and reported on by Reuters a couple of days earlier produced very different findings: (READ MORE)
Alan Dershowitz: Democrats and Waterboarding - I recently had occasion to discuss the Bush administration's war on terrorism with one of the highest ranking former officials responsible for planning that war. He asked me what I thought the administration's biggest mistake was. I told him that it was not immediately going bipartisan following the attacks of 9/11. President Roosevelt had invited Republicans to join his cabinet as the U.S. prepared to fight the Germans and the Japanese, and President Lincoln had included political opponents in his efforts to preserve the union. (READ MORE)
William Voegeli: The Trouble With Limited Government - A quarter century ago president Ronald Reagan declared in his first inaugural address: "In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. . . . It is my intention to curb the size and influence of the federal establishment and to demand recognition of the distinction between the powers granted to the federal government and those reserved to the states or to the people." In 1981, the year of that speech, the federal government spent $678 billion; in 2006, it spent $2,655 billion. Adjust that 292% increase for inflation, and the federal government is still spending 84% more than it did when Reagan became president--in a country whose population has grown by only 30%. (READ MORE)
Austin Bay: An India-U.S. Alliance? - Is the India-U.S. post-Cold War rapprochement blossoming into an ... ? The word intentionally missing from that first sentence is "alliance." In the complex brawl India calls its domestic politics, alliance -- when linked to the United States -- is a ruckus-sparking word. Mention "alliance" and the United States in the same sentence, and India's strong left-wing parties, particularly its Communist Party, score an easy propaganda headline. The Communists portray themselves as protectors of Indian sovereignty. The accusation of alliance also rankles Indian ultra-nationalists. So both the Indian and American governments avoid the word. (READ MORE)
Paul Greenberg: On the Care and Feeding of Terrorists - "If it's December 1941 in Casablanca, what time is it in New York? I bet they're asleep in New York. I bet they're asleep all over America." - Humphrey Bogart as Rick in "Casablanca" Everybody knows there are certain moral principles engraved in stone: Thou Shalt Not Kill, for example. Except of course in self-defense. Or war. Or in other cases of justifiable homicide. Don't lie, either. Except of course when the Gestapo is knocking on the door looking for the neighbors you've hidden in the attic. And torture is bad. That should go without saying, which is why every high-minded editorial page in the country seems to be saying it, for they all seem to have a knack for pointing out the obvious: Torture bad. (READ MORE)
Mike S. Adams: Illiberal Statism - For years, conservatives have been claiming that conservatism is dying in America. That isn’t true. Actually, liberalism is dying in America. But, unfortunately, it is being replaced by another ideology far more dangerous than liberalism. After you consider the following issues, I hope you will join me in an act of self-censorship that will culminate in a lifetime commitment to refrain from calling Democrats “liberals.” Instead, I would urge the use of the more appropriate term “statist.” Abortion. For years, many have mistakenly dubbed the pro-choice position as a “liberal” position. Clearly, it is not. (READ MORE)
John Stossel: With Government Money Come Strings - I apologize. Last week, I wrote enthusiastically about Utah's chance to have school vouchers. By now, we know whether voters said yes or no.Either way, while a voucher experiment is a good thing, and far superior to a government-run monopoly, I wonder if I wasn't too enthusiastic. As Sheldon Richman, editor of The Freeman magazine and author of Separating School and State, puts it: "'Public' money going to private schools cannot bode well for the future of those schools. Note that the Utah law requires private schools to give a nationally recognized exam -- one approved by the national education establishment. (READ MORE)
Walter E. Williams: Academic Cesspools II - In last month's column "Academic Cesspools," I wrote about "Indoctrinate U," a recently released documentary exposing egregious university indoctrination of young people at prestigious and not-so-prestigious universities (www.onthefencefilms.com/movies.html). I said the documentary only captured the tip of a disgusting iceberg. The Philadelphia-based Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), a frontline organization in the battle against academic suppression of free speech and thought, released information about what's going on at the University of Delaware, and probably at other universities as well, that should send chills up the spines of parents of college-age students. (READ MORE)
Jonah Goldberg: Fakery for Me, Not for Thee? - "Pat Philbin, the man who staged a fake FEMA news conference on the California wildfires last week, has lost his promotion because of the event, which begs the question: What does it actually take to get fired from FEMA?" That was the lead story on the latest installment of "Weekend Update," the faux news broadcast on "Saturday Night Live." Something bothered me about this, and not just Amy Poehler's misuse of the phrase "begs the question." Nor was it the idea that FEMA's staged news conference was scandalous simply because reporters, listening by phone, weren't able to ask questions while FEMA bureaucrats lobbed "fake" questions. There's no such thing as fake questions, after all, only fake answers. Was FEMA's fabrication any more fraudulent than, say, press releases written like real news stories? (READ MORE)
William F. Buckley: One up for the donors - The Foundation Management Institute (FMI) lets out what can only be described as a screech of joy. The cause? "Judge Neil Shuster (of Trenton, N.J.) ruled that the Robertson family is entitled to its day in court. At issue is control of the family's donations to the Robertson Foundation -- a fund now approaching $900 million." The point of the suit: William Robertson maintains that his parents, Charles and Marie Robertson, gave the money to the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs specifically to train students to work for the U.S. government. Princeton claims that the Robertsons gave Princeton the money, period. (READ MORE)
Amanda Carpenter: Kucinich Tries to Impeach Cheney - Democratic presidential candidate and Ohio congressman Rep. Dennis Kucinich formally introduced articles of impeachment against Vice-President Dick Cheney that narrowly missed receiving a full House vote Tuesday afternoon. Kucinich’s 18-page resolution charged that Cheney had “purposefully manipulated intelligence” in the run-up to the war in Iraq and had “fabricated a threat of weapons of mass destruction.” The resolution alleged that Cheney told many lies in televised interviews on nationally-broadcast news shows and in general speeches to the public. Democratic leadership killed Kucinich's resolution by "tabling" it, or sending it back to the Judiciary committee which it originated from. (READ MORE)
Lindsay Boyd: Freedom Week and Young America’s Foundation: “Who is the Real Revolutionary?” - “Who is the real revolutionary?” asks a new poster being distributed by Young America’s Foundation to celebrate this week as the fifth annual Freedom Week. Below this headlining question sits two pictures- one of Che Guevara and the other of Ronald Reagan. The latter was a United States President who singularly transformed the dynamics of the Cold War and formed a foundation of cornerstone ideals for the future of the conservative movement. His ideology, as the poster presents, “freed 425,574,877 people”. But who was Che Guevara? “His ideology murdered 100,000,000 people.” (READ MORE)
John McCaslin: Saddam Chronicles - "You've got to talk to George Piro," John Miller, the FBI's assistant director for public affairs, was telling Ronald Kessler over lunch at Brasserie Les Halles in downtown Washington as they discussed plans for Mr. Kessler's book "The Terrorist Watch: Inside the Desperate Race to Stop the Next Attack." "That'll be your best interview," Mr. Miller opined. He should know. Before taking the FBI job, he was the popular anchor for ABC's "20/20," and one of the few journalists to have interviewed elusive terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden. "Nobody's ever heard of Piro," Mr. Miller explained. "And if you ever mention his name in public, I'll have to have you killed," (READ MORE)
Donald Douglas: Democrats and Torture - Be sure to read Alan Dershowitz's commentary piece in this morning's Wall Street Journal. Dershowitz addresses the absence of bipartisan cooperation in the war on terror following 9/11. He notes, though, that hopes for interparty unity on national security are not realistic given the Democratic Party's impulse to antiwar pacifism: "This pacifistic stance appeals to the left wing of the democratic electorate, which may have some influence on the outcome of democratic primaries, but which is far less likely to determine the outcome of the general election. Most Americans--Democrats, Republicans, independents or undecided--want a president who will be strong, as well as smart, on national security, and who will do everything in his or her lawful power to prevent further acts of terrorism." (READ MORE)
Ed Morrissey: The Open Option Or The Hypocrite Option? - Alan Dershowitz argues that the debate in the Senate this week regarding waterboarding demonstrated a level of hypocrisy beyond the issue of Congress demanding that an Attorney General nominee enforce laws they refuse to write. In today's Opinion Journal, the Harvard professor notes that almost everyone would expect the executive branch to use whatever means necessary in the ticking-bomb scenario to protect innocent American lives -- and therefore Michael Mukasey answered correctly that the circumstances would dictate (under current law) whether a particular application of waterboarding violates the law. In fact, the hypothetical became reality for the Israelis, and will likely do the same for Americans: (READ MORE)
Big Dog: Follow the Bouncing Hillary Ball - Hillary Rodham is still having trouble with the issue of driver's licenses for ILLEGALS. It has been over a week since she answered the question about it several different ways and twenty-four hours after her waffle she came out in support of giving ILLEGALS licenses. It would appear, despite her claims of being clear on the issues, that she has not been clear on this one. In her latest nuance, Rodham says that issuing licenses to ILLEGALS should depend on the state. She stated that in a state like New York there is a huge security problem and a lot of ILLEGALS but that in other states it might not be a big deal. (READ MORE)
Dafydd: Some Respect for the Lady - This David Samuels article from FrontPage Magazine takes a couple of small steps forward to rein in the hysterical Condi-bashing by so many conservatives; but it takes one giant leap backwards by perpetuating the most irritating part of the media charade: Accepting as uncontested fact an anti-Condi whispering campaign orchestrated by a "respected left-wing [Israeli] journalist" with a class interest in portraying Condoleezza Rice as biased towards Palestinians. (Hat tip to Soccer Dad, who e-mailed me the link after reading our last foray into this realm: Time to Fisk - er - Power Line?) Here is the part that is reasonable and perceptive: (READ MORE)
Ace of Spades: Shrinkage: Hillary’s License Flip-Flop Hurting In New Hampshire - Rasmussen has its first poll out since last week’s debate featuring Hillary’s, “Yes-No-Yes-Stop picking on me because I am a girl” Festival and it turns out voters weren’t impressed. It’s not a total meltdown by any stretch and she’s still leading but the margin continues to narrow. She led Obama by 16% prior to the debate, now it's down to 10%: "The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone poll of the state’s Likely Primary Voters shows Clinton leading Senator Barack Obama by ten percentage points, 34% to 24%. Former Senator John Edwards attracts 15% of the vote while New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson earns 8%. No other candidate tops the 3% level of support." (READ MORE)
The Belmont Club: Calm Down - Blackfive is beginning to scent panic on Iraq, citing a long authoritative post at Daily Kos explaining that recent security improvements in Iraq, presumably including events in Anbar, stem from the circumstance that Moqtada al-Sadr ordered his milita to cease offensive operations for six months. I disagree with the "Gift From Sadr" theory, and readers may want to read my Pajamas Media piece to see why. Doctrines in distress must be progressively modified to maintain their credibility. The classic example was the Ptolemaic theory that sun revolved around the earth. After the evidence began to go against it, the theory was modified by the addition of epicycles, a type of complex celestial movement, to make observations fit the theory. (READ MORE)
Lawhawk: Waterboarding Waterboarding - Something just doesn't smell right as people opposed to the act of waterboarding engage in waterboarding to demonstrate that it is torture. I can't quite put my finger on it. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that some of those Democrats who claim to oppose the technique because Attorney General nominee Mike Mukasey has refused to take an official position on the technique have not been so black and white about the issue in the past. (READ MORE)
Jeffrey Imm: Pakistan: Media Reports on Pakistani Islamists Conceal Their Anti-Freedom Ideology - In the media coverage of Pakistan President Musharraf's declaration of emergency and martial law, Islamists objecting to his emergency declaration are being portrayed as defenders of Pakistani freedom, when in fact they represent Islamist anti-freedom ideologies. While there are certainly other genuinely pro-freedom individuals who object to Musharraf's emergency declaration, media sources are combining reports of anti-freedom Islamists' criticism along with other democratic opponents of Pakistan President Musharraf, and in the process, lending undue credibility to Islamist Pakistanis. (READ MORE)
Noah Shachtman: Hamas' Very Own Hollywood - "The Gaza Strip's isolated and cash-strapped Hamas rulers plan to build a $200 million media city and movie production house that will be part tourist attraction and part effort to cement control of the territory it seized by force in June." Check your watch. It's WTF o'clock. "So far, though, the Islamic militants have raised only a tiny fraction of the money it needs for its own Hollywood, at a time when the Gaza economy has ground to a standstill and its people are struggling to feed themselves because of Israeli and international sanctions against the Islamic group listed as a terror organization. Even so, Hamas envisions a glittering facility with production and graphics studios, satellite technology, gardens, water ponds, a children's entertainment area and an array of cafes and restaurants, said the Felasteen daily, a Hamas paper." (READ MORE)
Dadmanly: Thoughts of Consequence - Three remarkable posts from three disparate sources coalesce around the concepts of stewardship, consequences, and responsibility. In the first, the Anchoress compares differing reactions to the “alarmism” in President Bush’s response to terrorism (or the threat of Iraq, or the threat of Iran), and former Vice President Gore’s global warming alarmism, and notes the irony. (I also note the hypocrisy. Alarmism, evidently, is in the eyes of the beholden.) In the course of her reflection, the Anchoress reflects on stewardship, and the potential consequences of taking action before fully understanding causes and effects: (READ MORE)
Don Surber: What broken fences? - “I probably would be most useful to her doing something to try and restore America’s standing in the world and build more allies and get us to work together again.” — Bill Clinton, June 10, 2007. Nuts. America’s relations with allies have seldom been better. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: France just elected the most pro-American Frenchman since Lafayette. You know why? The French are scared to death of the Islamic fanatics. (READ MORE)
Democracy Project: Free Speech for Sharad - The faculty union of the City University of New York known as the Professional Staff Congress (PSC) has a penchant for aiding and abetting terrorists and supporting political causes with the member’s dues. Now determined to forever silence all criticism, one of the prominent union big wigs has just filed a $2 million lawsuit to shut down the one remaining gadfly, Dr. Sharad Karkhanis Professor Emeritus from Kingsborough Community College who has been tirelessly exposing the malfeasance of the PSC and the incompetence of its leaders in his influential internet newsletter The Patriot Returns. (READ MORE)
Bryan Preston: (Audio) Hoyer credits surge with quelling violence in Iraq - Another issue that divides Democrats: Why is the violence going down in Iraq? They’re no longer arguing that it is going down, but why. Rep. David “idiot liberals” Obey thinks it’s because the various factions over there have run out of people to kill. Rep. Steny Hoyer thinks the violence is abating because of the surge. “House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said on Tuesday that the troop surge, which began in June, has had a significant impact on the situation in Iraq and noted that he had always been critical of the Bush administration for deploying an insufficient number of troops in previous years.” (READ MORE)
Ian Schwartz: Red, Green Lights To Be Banned Because They’re Too Christmasy - Filed under: You have got to be f@*#ing kidding me: "A special task force in a Colorado city has recommended banning red and green lights at the Christmas holiday because they fall among the items that are too religious for the city to sponsor. 'Some symbols, even though the Supreme Court has declared that in many contexts they are secular symbols, often still send a message to some members of the community that they and their traditions are not valued and not wanted. We don’t want to send that message,' Seth Anthony, a spokesman for the committee, told the Fort Collins, Colo., Coloradoan." (READ MORE)
IMAO: Lapse of Assault Weapons Ban Causing Guns It Didn't Ban to Flood the Streets! - The big front page story on CNN.com yesterday was a story saying Florida cops are having to deal more assault weapons and tries to link it to the lapse of the assault weapons ban. The problem is, the reporter keep referring to the criminals having fully-automatic weapons that were smuggled in from former Soviet bloc countries, i.e., actual assault weapons, which as you all know has nothing to do the assault weapons ban which only banned certain types of semi-automatic weapons, i.e., not assault weapons. Now, police officers having to deal with smuggled AK-47s is certainly a story, but the reporters made this one complete crap by trying to tie that in with a bill that absolutely nothing to do with anything else mentioned in the story. (READ MORE)
Jules Crittenden: Not Quite Enough Rope - But a game try as House GOP lends Kucinich (D-Roswell) a hand with Cheney impeachment, attempts to ignite Dem petard. The Hill: "House Republicans on Tuesday nearly forced Democratic leaders to vote on a resolution to impeach Vice President Cheney. Anti-war presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) introduced a privileged resolution, used to circumvent the committee process, to get his impeachment measure to the House floor." (READ MORE)
Knee Deep in the Hooah!: An unforgetable story of valor - I read the following article and write up on RN today, and the remembrance of this courageous hero's last battle was so incredible that I left the story in absolute amazement. Please remember his family in your prayers this weekend as they accept honors for his service, valor and sacrifice. I have posted some excerpts from the newspaper write up, as well as an excerpt from his Distinguished Service Cross write up. (READ MORE)
Amy Proctor: Dancing with the Stars Judge Insults Bush - Well, that was rude. Len Goodman, judge on Dancing with the Stars and British national, dissed the Commander in Chief on last night's show. Shocker coming from Hollywood. (Watch Video)
Michelle Malkin: A diplomat scolds State Department weenies - Morning must-read: Foreign Service Officer John Matel slaps the whiners and weenies at the State Department who don’t want to go to Iraq: “Calling Iraq a death sentence is just way over the top. I volunteered to come here aware of the risks but confident that I will come safely home, as do the vast majority of soldiers and Marines, who have a lot riskier jobs than we FSOs do…This sound and fury at Foggy Bottom truly signifies nothing. Get over it! I do not think many Americans feel sorry for us and it is embarrassing for people with our privileges to paint ourselves as victims.” (READ MORE)
WLS: Enough Already — Is Waterboarding “Torture” in violation of federal law? Let us address the question head-on - There are several related discussions going on across various threads connected to this question. So, lets just bring them all together here. But, lets give ourselves some context. Here is how “torture” is defined in 18 USC Sec. 2340: (1) “torture” means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control; (2) “severe mental pain or suffering” means the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from – (A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering: (READ MORE)
Kim Zigfeld: Lies, Damned Lies, and Vladimir Putin's Public Statements - The Moscow Times reports on an amazing scandal which neatly encapsulates the shocking depths already being plumbed by Vladimir Putin's neo-Soviet regime in Russia. At a recent televised Q & A with the Russian public, a purported Siberian septuagenarian grease monkey called in to ask Putin what he thought about former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright declaring that Russia's Siberia region had too many resources for one country alone to be allowed to control. Putin characterized Albright's remark as "political erotica" and dismissed it. (READ MORE)
Right Wing Nut House: Dennis Kucinich - A Merry Prankster - Dennis Kucinich is just old enough to have been one of Ken Kesey’s “Merry Pranksters” – those wild and crazy post-beat generation prophets of the psychedelic age whose cross country trip on a bus named “Further” has captured the imaginations of rebels and reprobates for 40 years. Immortalized in one of the most manic, most hilarious books of the 1960’s, The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe, the Pranksters made it their business to try and alter the consciousness of America by getting everyone to drop acid and turn on to the psychedelic experience. The Pranksters themselves were quite the crew. “Pranking” unsuspecting citizens from coast to coast with elaborate hoaxes, the Prankster’s in your face method of revolutionary activity made them all seem larger than life. (READ MORE)
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