(I posted this some time ago. I thought that some Sly and the Family Stone would be fun to re-post.) I’m feelin’ so good that I just felt like adding some mo’ music to celebrate!
There’s plenty of other news going on. I’m just trying to chill just for a second. Ken Mehlman is stepping down as RNC chairman. Bill Maher suggested that Mehlman was gay on Larry King Live. I don’t know if all of this is related or not.
The President, while preaching bi-partisanship, asks Congress to approve some of his most controversial nominees like John Bolton.
We all knew it was coming. It was simply a matter of time. Water cannons, tear gas and riot batons greeted Iranian protesters this morning. Now we’re at a critical juncture. The government has made it clear that they’re not going to put up with any more of these protests. Now it is the protest leaders’ move. Will they try and push forward? Will they try and garner more support? In my opinion, in order for these protests to mean anything, the protest leaders need to get more people out instead of fewer. The protest will need to be more orderly and more civilized… and more Gandhi-like than ever.
Police officers used sticks and tear gas to force back thousands of demonstrators under plumes of black smoke in the capital on Saturday, a day after Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said there would be “bloodshed” if street protests continued over the disputed presidential election.
Separately, state-run media reported that three people were wounded when a suicide bomber blew himself up at the Tehran shrine of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in the southern part of the city, several miles from the scheduled protests. The report of the blast could not be independently confirmed.
The violence unfolded on a day of extraordinary tension across Iran. The opposition leader, Mir Hussein Moussavi, appeared at a demonstration in southern Tehran and called for a general strike if he were to be arrested. “I am ready for martyrdom,” he said. (more…)
US President Barack Obama has warned Iran to stop all “unjust action against its own people”, after another day of protests over the presidential poll.
Witnesses said security forces used batons and live ammunition in clashes with protesters, who had gathered in defiance of the country’s leader.
Mr Obama urged Iran’s leaders to “govern through consent, not coercion”.
Defeated candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi repeated calls for the election to be annulled on the grounds it was rigged.
Mr Obama, in a statement from the White House on Saturday, said: “The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights. (more…)
I have blogged on Swine Flu every week since its outbreak. I have a feeling that nobody is listening. There are over 21,000 cases in the US with 87 deaths. Every state from Alaska to Florida has reported swine flu cases.
The first study of U.S. health care workers with swine flu found that many didn’t do enough to protect themselves against the virus.
Researchers focused on 13 nurses and other health care workers who were likely infected at work in the early days of the U.S. outbreak. They found that only half always wore gloves, and even fewer routinely wore other protection around patients who might have the virus.
In late April just as U.S. cases were first mounting the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said health care workers should wear gloves, gowns, eye protection and respirator masks when dealing with patients suspected of having swine flu. The CDC also advised sick workers to stay home.
To date, about 80 health care workers have been confirmed with swine flu. The study examined the 26 cases of infected workers with detailed information as of mid-May.
The CDC discussion of the findings is here (transcript). Summer camp impact is here.
Huge protests throughout Iran yesterday. Please see the above video.
I was really confused as to where the Ayatollah could go from here. It seems that he’s painted himself into a corner. Either he doubles down and sticks with the current party line, that the elections were fair, or he announces that he was wrong earlier in the week when he endorsed Ahmadinejad. Today, we found the answer. He doubled down.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Friday demanded an end to street protests that have shaken the country since a disputed presidential election a week ago and said any bloodshed would be their leaders’ fault.
He defended Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the rightful winner of the presidential vote and denied any possibility that it had been rigged, as Ahmadinejad’s opponents have asserted.
“If there is any bloodshed, leaders of the protests will be held directly responsible,” Khamenei declared in his first address to the nation since the upheaval began. (more… )
Many on the right continue to be clueless about exactly what is going on in Iran and America’s role. Everything is not about us. Of course, Charles Krauthammer doesn’t understand this.
But according to data compiled by SCOTUSblog, Sotomayor’s reported 60 percent reversal rate is lower than the overall Supreme Court reversal rate for all lower court decisions from the 2004 term through the present — both overall and for each individual Supreme Court term. Using SCOTUSblog’s data, Media Matters for America has also calculated the reversal rate for only federal appeals court decisions:
This morning, Attorney General Eric Holder testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Ranking member Jeff Sessions (R-AL) slammed the Justice Department’s release of Bush-era memos authorizing the use of torture on terrorist suspects, telling Holder that his “predecessor, Judge Mukasey, and Mr. Hayden,” the former Director of National Intelligence, “didn’t approve of that at all.” Holder reminded Sessions that Mukasey and Hayden were no longer in charge:
SESSIONS: Well it was disapproved by your predecessor, Judge Mukasey, and Mr. Hayden, the CIA, um, DIA [sic] director. They didn’t approve of that at all. … You were willing to release matters that the DNI and the Attorney General believe were damaging to our national security.
HOLDER: Well, one attorney general thought that. I am the Attorney General of the United States, and it is this attorney general’s view that the release of that information was appropriate, as well as the president of the United States. I respect their opinion, but I had to make the decision, holding the office that I now hold.
So, in my mind, this was a good exchange for Eric Holder. On the other hand, it seems that Attorney General Holder had a very hard time saying that violating the FISA law was a criminal act. I know why he wouldn’t say the obvious. That would mean that he would have to immediately start prosecuting Bush officials. He probably isn’t ready for that yet.
By far the most disturbing part of the Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing today came when Russ Feingold asked Eric Holder whether he stands by a statement he made before the American Constitution Society last year.
In the midst of a speech that repeated “rule of law” like a Greek Chorus, after introducing this passage from his speech by saying certain steps taken by the Bush Administration “were unlawful,” Holder said, “I never thought a President would act in direct defiance of federal law by authorizing warrantless NSA surveillance of American citizens.”
When Feingold asked Holder whether he stands by that statement, Holder ignored the early part of his speech where he described all of Bush’s abuses to be “unlawful,” and instead tried to claim he was narrowly saying that Bush simply “contravened” FISA. (more…)
Finally, it looks as if the NSA has been looking at everyone’s emails… not just the terrorists’. Former President Bill Clinton’s email was viewed by NSA trainees.
Since April, when it was disclosed that the intercepts of some private communications of Americans went beyond legal limits in late 2008 and early 2009, several Congressional committees have been investigating. Those inquiries have led to concerns in Congress about the agency’s ability to collect and read domestic e-mail messages of Americans on a widespread basis, officials said. Supporting that conclusion is the account of a former N.S.A. analyst who, in a series of interviews, described being trained in 2005 for a program in which the agency routinely examined large volumes of Americans’ e-mail messages without court warrants. Two intelligence officials confirmed that the program was still in operation.
Both the former analyst’s account and the rising concern among some members of Congress about the N.S.A.’s recent operation are raising fresh questions about the spy agency.
Representative Rush Holt, Democrat of New Jersey and chairman of the House Select Intelligence Oversight Panel, has been investigating the incidents and said he had become increasingly troubled by the agency’s handling of domestic communications. (more…)
Keith Olbermann has James Risen, reporter from the New York Times, on his show to chat about these latest developments.
Taking out Osama Bin Laden would be a huge feather in Barack Obama’s cap. He would be able to tell former vice president Dick Cheney to stick a sock in it whenever Cheney begins to flap his lips on national security. That would be something. Cenk Uyger of the Young Turks believes that Bin Laden will not be sending many more video messages:
Almost exactly three years ago I predicted the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. And a month later he was dead. Sometimes you can see the handwriting on the wall. Zarqawi had gotten careless and had also turned the local population against him, which I figured would eventually catch up with him. And it did. Now, I see similar handwriting on the wall for Osama bin Laden.
Here are the clues that Osama’s days are numbered:
In one of his latest tapes, he was asking for donations to his cause. This is not something that was part of the regular fare before. If they’re desperate enough to attach that to a threat that was otherwise bragging about how they’re going to rip us apart, then they might be running low on cash. It doesn’t sound very menacing to beg for a handout. If they’re running low on funds, then they could be in a world of trouble.
The Taliban who have traditionally protected Al Qaeda leadership have alienated the local population in Pakistan by carrying out a series of terrorist attacks against respected tribal leaders and innocent civilians. When you lose the local population, you’re living on borrowed time.
We have a smart president. In the seven years after 9/11, the Bush administration could not for the life of them get the Pakistani government to move against the Taliban or Al Qaeda, who had taken shelter in northern Pakistan. They got almost no results in rooting out those forces from the Swat and Waziristan areas. I don’t know if it’s because they didn’t know what they were doing or it was because they didn’t really care to try.
Harriet Miers and Karl Rove seem to have a day in front of the House Judiciary Committee. Wow, could it be? Could the wheels of justice be turning? Nope, I must be dreaming.
I’m becoming more and more confused about the Obama White House. President Barack Obama seems to be following many of Bush’s policies on secrecy. Very disturbing.
On May 13, when Obama announced he would attempt to suppress prisoner abuse photos on the ground that their release would inflame anti-American sentiment, I wrote:
Think about what Obama’s rationale would justify. Obama’s claim . . . means we should conceal or even outright lie about all the bad things we do that might reflect poorly on us. For instance, if an Obama bombing raid slaughters civilians in Afghanistan (as has happened several times already), then, by this reasoning, we ought to lie about what happened and conceal the evidence depicting what was done — as the Bush administration did — because release of such evidence would “would be to further inflame anti-American opinion and to put our troops in greater danger.” Indeed, evidence of our killing civilians in Afghanistan inflames anti-American sentiment far more than these photographs would. Isn’t it better to hide the evidence showing the bad things we do?
Last Friday, when yet another dispute arose between local Afghan officials and the U.S. military over whether a U.S. airstrike caused a large number of civilian deaths, I wrote a post entitled ”Should the U.S. also suppress evidence of civilian deaths in Afghanistan?” and asked:
Using the standard that is now so accepted across the political spectrum in Washington — information that will inflame anti-American sentiment should be suppressed rather than disclosed so at to not endanger our troops — isn’t it better if we just cover-up, rather than learn the truth about, the civilian deaths we caused in Afghanistan? After all, news reports of dead Afghan women and children at the hands of American bombs obviously inflame anti-American sentiment and Endanger Our Troops at least as much as the disclosure of some additional torture photos would. By the prevailing reasoning of Washington, shouldn’t we want our government to hide the truth about what we did — lest anti-American anger and the risk of attack on Our Troops increase? Isn’t that the noble anti-transparency principle we’re now endorsing?
Pentagon wavers on release of report on Afghan attack
WASHINGTON — Defense Department officials are debating whether to ignore an earlier promise and squelch the release of an investigation into a U.S. airstrike last month, out of fear that its findings would further enrage the Afghan public, Pentagon officials told McClatchy Monday.
The military promised to release the report shortly after the May 4 air attack, which killed dozens of Afghans, and the Pentagon reiterated that last week. U.S. officials also said they’d release a video that military officials said shows Taliban fighters attacking Afghan and U.S. forces and then running into a building. Shortly afterward, a U.S. aircraft dropped a bomb that destroyed the building.
However, a senior defense official told McClatchy Monday: “The decision (about what to release) is now in limbo.”
Pentagon leaders are divided about whether releasing the report would reflect a renewed push for openness and transparency about civilian casualties or whether it would only fan Afghan outrage and become a Taliban recruiting tool just as Army Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal takes command of U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
Two U.S. military officials told McClatchy that the video shows that no one checked to see whether any women or children were in the building before it was bombed. The report acknowledges that mistakes were made and that U.S. forces didn’t always follow proper procedures, but it does little to reassure Afghans that the U.S. has done enough to avoid repeating those mistakes.
It should be painfully obvious that those defending the Obama/Lieberman/Graham rationale for photo suppression — that evidence of wrongdoing should be suppressed when it will “inflame anti-American sentiment” — are endorsing a dangerous mentality that is certain to justify concealment of far more than these torture photos. Indeed, even before this week, that mindset had already begun to be applied to justify cover-up of government wrongdoing outside of the photo context, and is now — quite predictably — creeping into other areas. That development is as inevitable as it is disturbing.
Over the weekend, a GOP official in South Carolina posted a comment to Facebook comparing Michelle Obama to an escaped gorilla. Now, in a second instance of Republicans playing the race card against the Obamas, Wonkette notes that a racist e-mail was sent out by a legislative staffer for Tennessee GOP state senator Diane Black. The staffer, Sherri Goforth, e-mailed this composite picture of the country’s 44 presidents, which represents President Obama with only a set of eyes:
Nashville Is Talking asked Goforth about the e-mail:
When I asked her if she understood the controversial nature of the photo, Goforth would only say she felt very bad about accidentally sending it to the wrong list. When I gave her a second chance to address the controversial nature of the email, she again repeated that she only felt bad about sending it to the wrong list of people.
“I went on the wrong email and I inadvertently hit the wrong button,” Goforth told NIT. “I’m very sick about it, and it’s one of those things I can’t change or take back.”
So, I’m trying to find out something about what’s going on in Iran, and on CNN I can watch a rerun of Larry King interviewing several gentlemen without shirtsleeves who apparently assemble choppers. On Fox Mike Huckabee is trying to explain why Jesus hates credit card relief. MSNBC is rerunning something about a prison in New Mexico. CNBC is evaluating whether college students should be able to afford Chanel tote bags.
Whenever I find myself talking about new media to skeptics of an older generation who worry that the standards online are too debased, I try to remind people that the real debasing came with the rise of multi-channel cable news. In terms of the Iranian elections, the world’s top newspapers have the people on the ground reporting the main facts, and there’s lots of smart analysis from legitimate experts all over the web, but on television if it can’t be captured by two talking heads debating each other it’s like it never happened.
I’ve turned off the Los Angeles Lakers – Orlando Magic basketball game. I just can’t watch anymore. For a quarter and a half, there was really good basketball. Congratulations to Los Angeles Lakers (watching this final just makes me want to remind everyone that there was basketball in the NBA. Remember when the Lakers played the Celtics? Larry Bird. Magic Johnson. James Worthy. Kevin McHale. Now that was basketball.)
I think it is becoming more and more obvious that the Iranian election has been less than fair.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (Independent -VT) was on the Situation Room on Friday. He’s talking about healthcare. He may be the only senator that I’ve heard talk openly and honestly about health care. He is a great advocate for the single-payer possibility. While conservatives are yelling about the government limiting healthcare, I would encourage them to read their own insurance policy. Very few of us have read all the fine print that comes in our insurance coverage. So, even those of us who have health insurance may not have the coverage we thought. Almost everyday I see someone who has insurance that doesn’t have any coverage for rehabilitation. What limitations is your policy put on home health care? Can you have a visiting nurse?
DemFromCT has a nice post on healthcare. He reiterated some the points that I made about the American Medical Association. The bottom line is that everyone in the healthcare game may have to give a little in order for us to get universal health care coverage. This means that insurance companies may have to provide more with less. Taxes may have to go up. Physician reimbursement may go down. The American Medical Association needs to work with Congress to make this happen.
It looks like John Yoo, former Bush administration official in the Office of Legal Counsel, is going to be forced to testify in a suit brought by José Padilla. As you recall, John Yoo was responsible for the first torture memos that opened up Pandora’s Box. This is going to be an extremely interesting and extremely important trial. Will John Yoo try and pull a Rove and simply not show up?
Currently, the Los Angeles Lakers are pounding the Orlando Magic. The guards for Orlando seemed not to have ever been taught the fundamentals of basketball. Ridiculously stupid turnovers. Guards driving down the lane that clearly don’t have a shot and don’t have an outlet pass. They are stuck — turnover. There was a huge block in the latter part of the third quarter by one of the best centers I’ve ever seen, Dwight Howard. One of the guards picked up the loose ball then heaved the ball three quarters of the length of the court and overthrows his teammate. The ball should have never been thrown. Turnover. Finally, the Magic are doing a wonderful job of moving the ball around, but now everyone is scared of taking the wide-open shot. It was as if we were watching high school basketball. Don’t get me wrong, the Los Angeles Lakers are playing good basketball. Kobe Bryant will go down as one of the greatest basketball players of all time but please. Orlando could’ve made this a close game.
Finally, congratulations to Phil Jackson. He has coached some of the greatest players of all-time. He’s also been smart enough to surround these players with people like Scottie Pippen and Pau Gasol.
They earned their 15th title on Sunday night as Bryant scored 30 points and Pau Gasol added 14 and 15 rebounds in a 99-86 win in Game 5 over the Orlando Magic, who ran out of comebacks.
Jackson, the chilled-out, bow-legged Zen Master who won six league titles in the 1990s with Jordan in Chicago, now has won No. 4 with Los Angeles and broke a tie with legendary Boston coach Red Auerbach as the winningest coach in finals history. (more…)
I spoke with Eric Boehlert of Media Matters yesterday about his new book, Bloggers on the Bus. One of the stories in the book is about an ad that I had completely forgotten about. It was the Vote Different ad that got over five million hits, based on an outstanding Apple ad that aired back in 1984. Here’s the Vote Different ad.
Now, this was, as far as I know, the first hit by the Commodores. Machine Gun is an instrumental. The Commodores went on to produce such hits as Zoom, Easy and Brick House. Lead Singer Lionel Richie had a solo career that at its height made Lionel one of the most popular solo performers in the world. Lionel was unfortunate, though, to produce his best stuff at the same time that Michael Jackson was sucking all of the oxygen out of the room with Thriller and Off the Wall.
This is a great show. It takes place after the famous tea bagging parties, so I go out of my way not to talk about tea, tea bags, tea baggers, taxes, tax cuts or anything else that has to do with tea bagging. The subject has been done so many times. We can’t go there anymore.
Aaron is preparing to go to a broadcast convention in Las Vegas. We spend a little time talking about Vegas and some of the great comedians that I’ve seen in Vegas, including Bill Cosby, Jackie Mason and Bob Newhart. I also talk about some of the great shows which can be seen in Vegas, which would include Cirque du Soleil.
The torture memos, four separate documents, were released this week. The first is a memo by Jay Bybee, who at the time was Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel. The second memo was written approximately three years later by Stephen Bradberry, acting Assistant Attorney General at the Office of Legal Counsel. Steven Bradbury has a second memo from that same date, May 10, 2005. This is the third of the four memos. Finally, Stephen Bradberry writes a last memo on May 30, 2005. These memos are eye-opening. I have had an opportunity to read all of them. Of course, Marcy Wheeler has.
A new law in Afghanistan is passed in which a man does not need to have consent in order to have sex with his wife. This is crazy with a capital “C.” I’m figuring the phrase “human rights” and “Afghanistan” don’t belong in the same sentence… at least not at this time.
Elizabeth Warren, who is overseeing the TARP funds, is on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. They’re in the middle of an interesting yet depressing discussion about how we have handed billions of dollars to these large corporations with little or no accountability. Just as I think Jon Stewart’s head is about to explode (and mine), Professor Warren launches into a thoughtful history of banking regulation in the United States since the early 1800s. It is a famous explanation and I play her whole discussion point. It is extremely insightful. As Jon Stewart said, “That was like financial chicken soup for me.”
Credit default swaps, no-money-down mortgage loans, deregulation… I spend a good deal of time trying to make sense out of the craziness in the financial system. Basically, I don’t think that there’s any one thing that has caused our financial implosion. Instead, I believe it was a series of things. I guess the point of my discussion is that we need more regulation of the financial industry in order to prevent meltdowns like this in the future. Expect a financial institutions to push back against any regulation. There’s going to be significant opposition both from Democrats and Republicans over reigning in the banks.
Why is everything so complex? I discuss some recent trouble I’ve had with my blog. I’ve had trouble posting and updating my blog. My computer gurus were somewhat stumped at what was wrong. I’m not sure that there’s anything else in American society that can be so frustrating as a computer or computer program that is not working as it should. I’m not sure why it’s so frustrating but it is. By the way, we did figure out the problem with my blog and it’s now up and running.
I cover these topics and more. My podcasts are also available on iTunes. Enjoy!
Paul Krugman had an outstanding column which posted on Thursday. He discussed the engine that may be driving all of this violent extremism which has resulted in the shooting at the Holocaust Museum and the cold-blooded murder of Dr. George Tiller. Krugman said, “Conservatives were outraged (at the Department of Homeland security report). The chairman of the Republican national committee denounced the report as an attempt to ‘segment out conservatives in this country who have a different philosophy or view from this administration’ and label them as terrorists.” He went on to say, “Today, as in the early days of the Clinton administration but to an even greater extent, right wing extremism is being systematically fed by the conservative media and political establishment.” Krugman hit the nail on the head.
One of the tactics that the conservatives use is what I’ll call the Diana Ross Doctrine — Upside Down. Hopefully, some you are old enough to remember Diana Ross’ hit single Upside Down. It is a nice tune in which she describes being disoriented by her lover. She is in fact turned — upside down. Conservatives have taken what is obviously a right wing extremist and applied the Diana Ross doctrine. Now, magically we’re supposed to believe that a white supremacist who hated Jews and Blacks was a left-wing extremist. I thought left-wing extremists were like ecoterrorists?
What the hell is going on in Iran? Both sides have claimed victory. Extremely confusing.
EmptyWheel has an excellent post on the Senate Select Committee On Intelligence. Both she and I shared a skepticism over Senator Dianne Feinstein‘s ability to truly investigate torture. She seemed to be somewhat of a Bush administration cheerleader. Yet, it appears that she is slowly but surely performing a thorough investigation. In a separate post Marcy, who loves lists, sets out the chronology that led up to the May 10, 2005 memos on torture. Marcy is incredibly detail oriented. She compiles information that can’t be found almost anywhere else. (By the way, why is Senator Dianne Feinstein chairman of the Senate select committee on intelligence? Why isn’t Senator Rockefeller? What happened? I’m just asking.)
I saw a snippet of the report that President Obama had fired the Inspector General of the Corporation for National and Community Service (whatever that is). Well, Talking Points Memo has the background story. It appears that the Inspector General, Gerald Walpin, was doggedly pursuing Kevin Johnson, a big Obama supporter, who is also the mayor of Sacramento, for misappropriation of funds through a charity that he runs called St. Hope Academy. The whole story is rather intricate, but it appears that the US Attorney General thought there was no case, yet Gerald Walpin continued to pursue Johnson.
Glenn Greenwald has had a series of posts which relate to one of the basic tenants of conservatism, at least conservatism as it is practiced in the United States. Conservatives like to say that their ideals are being prosecuted. They like to protect themselves as a persecuted minority instead of the most prosperous and privileged among us. Glenn has more.
Finally, there’s some good criticism about President Obama’s economic plans. As in any democracy, there is supposed to be and give-and-take. At the beginning of the economic stimulus discussion there seem to be a lot of excellent ideas on spending. These would have been long-term investments into our infrastructure. Many of these great ideas, including high-speed rail, which in my opinion would have paid dividends down the line, were tossed out in the sake of fiscal responsibility, party unity or whatever. Von of Obsidian Wings has a great post on how we are missing our economic targets. I fear that we may be looking at another jobless recovery. The jobless rate for new graduates is ridiculously high. We have to figure out a way to produce jobs or Obama will be a one-term president.
Oh, by the way, a new painting by Leonardo da Vinci has been discovered… sort of. The painting appears to be a copy of the long-lost original which many have been based on a nude Mona Lisa.
Errington C. Thompson, MD, is a surgeon, scholar, full-time sports fan and part-time political activist. He is active in a number of community projects and initiatives. Through medicine, he strives to improve the physical health of all he treats...
Nashville Is Talking asked Goforth about the 
