Sounding less like a military leader than a long-suffering Cubs fan, Joint Chiefs Chair Admiral Mike Mullen made remarks in Afghanistan Tuesday as he prepared for meetings in Pakistan on Wednesday and Thursday. Remarkably, Mullen tried to tell us in a news release at the Joint Chiefs web site that the first eight and a half years of fighting in Afghanistan don’t really count.

It’s unquestionably true that there have been virtually no major prosecutions stemming from the financial crisis. But yesterday we found the exception that proves the rule.

In addition to the March 22, 2001 meeting that a bunch of BP folks had as part of the “official” Energy Task Force meetings, BP’s CEO John Browne had his very own meeting with Cheney during the Energy Task Force discussions. And among other things the Task Force was discussing were Iraq’s oil fields and the companies already trying to develop them.

Speaking of which, this is very small government-y!

Fittingly the day before 4/20 was a day of many “achievements” for the Republican Party.

Professor Longhair and The Meters — Tipitina.

To paraphrase a line from the recent Trump roast, would America vote for a man whose autobiography has four Chapter 11s? Are we that celebrity struck, mindless and bloated? Yes, in the past Ronald Reagan, a not so great actor with scary hair and a weird tan, was elected President, but for Gods’ sakes he was an an actor. Trump is a salesman. And/or a better performance art piece than Sarah Palin designed to distract us from some real issues. And he’s endorsed by Gary “Only-Victoria-Jackson-is-Crazier” Busey!

The dwindling attendance at Tea Party rallies — something which has been noticed for two years now — is really ticking off two Minnesota Republicans with a love for the microphone and the camera, namely Michele Bachmann and Mitch Berg. La Bachmann needs no introduction here; however, Mitchie-Poo likely does.

The rulers being protested throughout the Middle East have had enough time to gauge the situation and determine their course of action. They are making the choice that repression and defiance will yield benefits, even though it did not work for Ben Ali in Tunisia and Mubarak in Egypt.

I wonder if someone can sketch out for me a vision of America as an economic superpower with no jobs other than finance and the low-wage service sector, with a hollowed-out industrial base, and with its largest corporations replacing jobs at home with jobs overseas. It may make sense to those individual companies, but I’m straining to see how it makes sense for the mass of workers in this country.