Where's the Outrage?

Did you see this story? Very odd.

From NYT:

A bomber on a motorcycle killed a scientist from Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment site and his bodyguard-driver on Wednesday during the morning commute in Tehran, Iranian media reported, in an assassination that could further elevate international tensions over the Iranian nuclear program and stoke the country’s growing anti-Western belligerence.

It was the fourth such attack reported in two years and, as after the previous episodes, Iranian officials accused the United States and Israel of responsibility. The White House condemned the attack and denied any responsibility. The official reaction in Israel appeared to be more cryptic.

Iranian news accounts said the suspected assassin had attached a magnetized explosive device to the scientist’s car and escaped during the rush hour in northern Tehran. News photographs from the scene showed a car, a Peugeot 405, draped in a pale blue tarp being lifted onto a truck. Some photographs published by Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency showed what it said was the body of the scientist still inside the car. The head was covered with a white cloth.

I just don’t know what to make of it. It is something out of James Bond.

Of course we are the denial from the State Department.

Tags: Iran by ecthompson md
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From PA (I inserted some good stuff, I couldn’t help myself):

• Libya: “Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi remained at large Monday, and loyalist forces still held pockets of the city, stubbornly resisting the rebels’ efforts to establish full control, but there was little doubt that the Libyan leader’s four-decade grip on power was ending.”
• The Gaddafi regime is collapsing sooner than anticipated, forcing Western countries to scramble to put together post-conflict plans for Libya.
• Egyptian/Israeli tensions reach their highest point in three decades: “Diplomats scrambled to avert a crisis in relations between Egypt and Israel on Saturday, and the Israeli government issued a rare statement of regret for the killing of three Egyptian security officers by an Israeli warplane.”
• Iran: “Two American hikers imprisoned in Iran for more than two years have been convicted of espionage and sentenced to eight years in jail, according to a news reports.”
• The world probably didn’t need an easier way to enrich uranium, but General Electric has developed a successful new laser-enrichment technique.

• President Richard M. Nixon started a radical program to control inflation on this date in 1971. Wage and price freeze. It sort of worked.
• The Keystone XL pipeline, which would “carry diluted bitumen — an acidic crude oil — from Canada’s Alberta tar sands to the Texas Gulf Coast,” is generating controversy.
• Juan Cole has an interesting item noting the “top 10 myths” about the war in Libya.
• A long-awaited memorial honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.opened to the public today, near the Washington Mall.
• Not suspicious at all: “The e-mail accounts of Rick Scott and most of the governor-elect’s transition team were deleted soon after he took office, potentially erasing public records that state law requires be kept.”
• Rick Perry wrote this very extremist book and now people are saying him about it. It seems that he doesn’t like or believe the ideas in the book which he wrote.
• This whole economy has me worried.
• Gas prices look like they are going to fall for the next several months. That’s good news.
• Something’s wrong with this picture: “[T]he total cost of tuition, room, and board at Amherst College, for instance, is $53,370 a year. Even relatively affluent people can’t easily manage to shell out $53,000 at one time. And so Amherst uses a company called Tuition Management Systems to help make tuition payments more affordable. But TMS charges a 2.99 percent fee for every credit charge transaction. That’s $1,595 a year.”

HP just killed the TouchPad and WebOS

• For those who believe that business always gets things right, I present to you HP’s touchpad. HP had the pad market and did little if anything with it for years. They bought Compaq and Palm several years ago and Compaq had those little devices that were almost useful. The iPad comes out of nowhere. Apple kicks everyone’s butt. HP retools. They rework the OS and present a flop. I don’t understand how you spend all of that time and effort and come out with garbage. Engadget said it best, “Oh, happy day, when one first receives a device that’s been eagerly anticipated for months. Sad, sad day when that device fails to live up to one’s expectations. We all wanted the TouchPad to really compete, to give us a compelling third party to join the iOS and Android boxes on the ballot. But, alas, this isn’t quite it.”

Tags: Domestic Issues, Foreign Affairs, Iran, Israel by ecthompson md
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There have been just a few things that I wanted to cover but that don’tneed separate posts.

• From the Economist: ONE IN six adults in the 33 mostly rich countries of the OECD is obese (measured as a body mass index of 30 or more) according to a report published on September 23rd. The fattest countries are the United States and Mexico, where around a third of adults are obese. Britain’s adults are the biggest in Europe. By contrast, Asian OECD countries Japan and South Korea are the leanest. Governments will count the eventual cost: health-care spending on an obese person is 25% more than for someone of average weight. And the problem is not confined to the rich world. In rapidly developing countries such as China, Brazil and India obesity rates, though still low, are growing fast as the dietary habits of the ever-increasing middle classes change. (Ed. Note – The Economist notes that they made an error in these data. The US is the most obese country and NOT Mexico.)

• For some reason, there is a buzz around the $100 million that Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, is giving to the Newark public school system. He might be trying to clean his image. Really? S, he is the first millionaire billionaire to try to whitewash his image? If you give me $100 million, I’ll hold a press conference and thank you without worrying about your motivations. Arianna has more: So the $100 million donation to Newark’s crumbling public schools is not in and of itself the story? The story is figuring out the motivation behind it? Is this what we have come to? Can you think of anything more ridiculous? I really don’t care why Mark Zuckerberg is donating $100 million of his own money that will make a profound difference to the lives of Newark’s children. I care very much that it’s being done — that one of America’s worst school systems will be getting a massive infusion of funds.
• The Republican “Pledge” is one of the biggest pieces of public misinformation in a long time. I’m still laughing at Republicans who now think that their plan will reduce the deficit.
• One of the best examples of a non-story is Rep. Steven King being steamed that Stephen Colbert testified on Capitol Hill. I’m sorry, but I don’t care that Rep. King is steamed. He seems to love being on Fox and will say anything to be on the network, again.
• Speaking of a media hound, there is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president. He made wildly inaccurate statements during his UN speech yesterday, accusing the US of being behind 9/11.  Then again, this is par for the course. He has denied that millions of Jews were killed during the Holocaust.
• Finally, on a lighter note, a lost language may have been found.

Tags: Civil Rights, Healthcare, Iran, Science by ecthompson md
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Today kind of kept going and going. I will look over the healthcare legislation tomorrow. Right now, I will hold my nose and support it. I will address the rift in the progressive blogosphere, which I don’t think is necessarily bad.

From Political Animal:

* Tehran: “Iran’s most senior dissident cleric, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, has died, his grandson said Sunday. He was 87. Nasser Montazeri said his grandfather, who was seen as the spiritual father of Iran’s reform movement, died in his sleep overnight.”

* Hopefully, a good sign: “The hiring of temporary workers has surged, suggesting that the nation’s employers might soon take the next step, bringing on permanent workers, if they can just convince themselves that the upturn in the economy will be sustained.”

* The American Medical Association formally endorses the Senate health care bill.

* President Obama’s Passenger Bill of Rights: “The federal government will impose big fines starting this spring on airlines that keep passengers waiting on the tarmac too long without feeding them or letting them off the plane. Airlines that let a plane sit on the tarmac for more than two hours without giving passengers food or water, or more than three hours without offering them the option of getting off, will face fines of $27,500 a passenger, the secretary of transportation announced on Monday.”

* Counter-terrorism: “On orders from President Barack Obama, the U.S. military launched cruise missiles early Thursday against two suspected al-Qaeda sites in Yemen, administration officials told ABC News in a report broadcast on ABC World News with Charles Gibson.”

* Health care reform is going to save a lot of American families a lot of money.

* We know about the ways in which the Senate health care bill got worse (it lost the public option), but in a variety of other ways, it got much better.

* Jane Hamsher writes up 10 specific reasons she’d like to see the Senate health care bill defeated. Jonathan Cohn and Ezra Klein write up specific rebuttals to Hamsher’s list.

* CNBC’s John Harwood is taking cheap and unnecessary shots at progressive opponents of health care reform. Completely uncalled for.

* Joe Klein takes down Tom Coburn.

Tags: Domestic Issues, Healthcare, Iran by ecthompson md
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My special guests – Brian Katulis from the Center for American Progress, Middle East expert and Rick Newman, Senior Business Correspondent for US News and World Report.

I start the show by discussing healthcare. Since the discussion in Washington has become so confusing, I start at the beginning. I play a clip from Barack Obama’s news conference in which he lays out the facts of what happens if we keep the status quo. I think it is clear that the status quo will more than double our health care over the next 10 years. We know the statistics about bankruptcies and the crushing burden of healthcare on small businesses.

We need to do something different. The question is what? In my mind, in order to organize this process, I think it is important to lay out the goals. The goals that I have laid out for healthcare reform our portability, efficiency and cost effective. Many of the proposals that are currently floating around Washington are rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. The goals that I’ve outlined, in my opinion, are the minimum qualifications for healthcare reform.

Let’s simply look at the numbers. In 2007, we spent $2.2 trillion on health care. This averages out to approximate $7400 per American. Approximately $700 billion was spent on health insurance overhead. If the government takes the $700 billion and spends it on covering the 46 million Americans, we can do this and have money left over. We don’t need to inject any more money into the system. I then mention several ways that we can control costs. Finally, I discussed a few elephants in the room — immigration reform, which I think is intimately associated with health care reform and tort reform. One of the things that I didn’t mention, because of time, was that we should also look at Medicare and Medicaid fraud. How can we reduce the cheating in the system?

I chat with my special guest Brian Katulis, fellow at the Center for American Progress, Middle East expert. We begin the conversation by talking about Pakistan and what’s going on in Pakistan. We talk about this huge refugee crisis that has been caused by the military offensive against the Taliban. We also talk about the internal politics of Iraq and Iran. I appreciate Brian’s knowledge and his time.

I then talk to Rick Newman, Senior business correspondent for U.S. News & World Report. Malls. Rick has a series of columns on the health of our economy by looking at the health of several malls. Currently, malls are dying all across the United States. We talk about how we’ve got way too many retail stores and many of these malls are not going to survive this recession. We also discuss another one of his columns which focuses on several industries that are still don’t have a tough time even after the recession is over. This is a great discussion. I appreciate Rick’s insight into these topics.

This is a fun and informative show. Enjoy!

The Errington Thompson Show 7-25-09 [ 54:20 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Economy, Healthcare, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Podcasts by ecthompson md
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Cenk Uyger from the Young Turks is in the HOUSE!!

• Buncombe County Dems announcement.  Rally today!!
• I would like to start the show by saying Happy Birthday to my wife.  She is 29 today.
• I will be playing Michael Jackson today.  As everyone knows by now, he died on Thursday.  There is some speculation that he had a narcotic overdose.  I was a big fan and saw him in concert three times.  I will focus on the positive.  I will be playing some of his lesser known songs because I was a fan. 

WAKE OF THE SCANDAL

• A new SurveyUSA poll in South Carolina finds that 60% of residents think Gov. Mark Sanford (Republican) should resign, while 34% think he should remain in office.

GOOD NEWS

• In an 8-1 decision the Supreme Court of the United States held that 13-year old Savana Redding’s constitutional rights were violated when school officials suspecting her of hiding prescription-strength painkillers and strip-searched the girl. The only dissenting justice was Clarence Thomas.

85%:

• Percent of Americans who say they are concerned about their future health care costs, according to a new Washington Post/ABC News poll.

For my Dare to be Stupid segment – I serve up – JON, KATE… AND THE GIRLFRIEND?

• That’s right. 23-year-old Deanna Hummel will appear on Jon and Kate plus 8 when the show returns in August. She’s the lady the photogs caught with Jon, prompting the couple’s split on national tv. Sorry, Jon, but you’ve lost all sympathy

Let’s Rewind

• Waxman-Markey is a big split personality of a bill. Its efficiency and renewable requirements would make a dent in greenhouse gas emissions, even if not a very big one. But the cap-and-trade at the heart of the legislation is another story. Why do we need cap-and-trade, a carbon tax or anything similar? If we could just flip a switch and turn off emissions quickly, there would be no need to discuss complex schemes. In that case, the best approach would just be to notify everyone they were required to stop polluting a year or three from now. Because greenhouse gas emissions are so interwoven into our infrastructure, we’ll have to phase out this type of pollution slowly, over decades.
• “House Republicans presented a four-page outline of their healthcare reform plan Wednesday but said they didn’t know yet how much it would cost, how they would pay for it or how many of the nearly 50 million Americans without insurance would be covered by it.”

I discuss current events with Cenk Uyger of the Young Turks who has an opinion or two to share with us!!!  This is a great interview.  We talk about events here at home and in Iran.

The Errington Thompson Show 6-27-09 [ 50:18 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Civil Rights, Domestic Issues, Healthcare, Iran, Music, Podcasts, State and Local Politics by ecthompson md
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Last weekend, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad expressed his displeasure with President Obama’s response to Iranian repression of demonstrators after the country’s recent election. As most of the world may know, Iranian streets turned into an uproar after the presidential election last month.

The Iranian people decided to express their outrage with the outcome of the election that declared Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s victory in the race in which many Iranian’s feel was a stolen victory.

Prior to the election and shortly after his presidential victory, President Obama made and attempt to ease relations with the Iranian Government. However, after Obama’s comments regarding the unjust treatment of protestors and President Ahmadinejad expressed anger of Obama’s words, the main question is; what now?

According to the AP, President Ahmadinejad vowed in a speech that the U.S. will regret its criticism of the way the Iranian government is handling post election crackdown. The Iranian President also made the statement of the U.S. removing its mask.

What I would like to know is; why does the U.S. have to remove a mask all of a sudden because of our president speaking up for protesters and supporting the right to freedom of speech? I feel Obama was genuine when making the decision to send a greeting to Iran shortly after winning the presidency. However, the recent treatment of protesters being beaten, shot, and even killed in the street like Neda is ridiculous and deserves to be criticized.

In addition to the repression of demonstrators, the Iranian government has also banned journalist from reporting on the streets and ordered them to stay inside.  In my opinion banning the media is just unheard of. This is starting to sound like a dictatorship.

Because of Iran’s media ban, the information that is learned comes from witnesses and official statements carried on Iranian media.

Tags: Iran by Blowfish
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How many of you think that we, as in America , are bullies? Well I will say that I think we have been somewhat of a bully in the past when it comes to other countries. We do not have to always put our noses in another country’s business and definitely not now. We have our own problems to worry about in America with the recession and millions of Americans being without health care just to name a couple of problems.

Obama recently gave a smart response in reference to the current events going on in Iran. We already have the likes of terrorist trying to get us every chance they get and not to mention the tragedy of 911.

Obama is being criticized for his careful choice of words when discussing Iran ’s post election riots. The president advised that he did not want to turn into a scapegoat for Iran . Many of the president’s critics are coming from the Republican party.  Some have stated that even European leaders are speaking out more on Iran ’s situation than President Obama. The president made a valid point in a recent interview saying that the US has no idea whether or not the Iranian presidential election was fair or unfair.

In his first formal interview of his presidency, Obama said that he would like for America ’s new administration to have a better diplomatic engagement with Iran .

What’s wrong with the president choosing his words wisely? Just because Obama chose to keep his words to a minimum doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about Iran ’s current situation or supports the undiplomatic way Iranian protesters are being treated.

Let’s remember people, we are not necessarily the world’s most favorite country.

Tags: Iran, Obama administration by Blowfish
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It appears that the Grand Ayatollah may have been wrong. I know… that’s a shocker. It is possible to fudge an election! Iran’s Guardian Council admitted that over 50 cities had more than 100% turnout of eligible voters. According to the spokesperson, this discrepancy may have added as many as three million “voters.” Well, that takes the margin of victory from seven million down to four million.

Nate Silver had a little bit more on the Ayatollah’s flawed logic.

BBC reporter Jon Leyne has been asked to leave the country by the Iranian government.

Tags: Iran by ecthompson md
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It should be no surprise to anyone that members of the gay and lesbian community are upset and disappointed with Barack Obama. The community had high hopes for President Bill Clinton, who let them down on a number of occasions, including the laughable policy Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. I think it is time for progressives to be truly… progressive. We cannot stand back and wait for change. We need make it happen. This is a civil rights issue. To this end, the gay and lesbian community needs to organize as they did in the mid-1980s. They need to march from Washington to Miami and from Houston to LA. They need to get support from the mainstream progressive community. We need to write Congress and force our congressmen to introduce legislation that would eliminate discrimination based on sexual orientation. This would resend the indefensible Defense of Marriage Act and would also eliminate Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. I guarantee that President Barack Obama would sign such legislation. On the other hand, Obama is not to make the same mistake that President Bill Clinton did, which is to get out ahead of the public on gay and lesbian issues. Clinton lost standing with the Pentagon because he forced, or tried to force, equality in the military.

If you question whether there is a media bias in this country, I would ask you to look no further than the Washington Post. They just fired liberal columnist Dan Froomkin. Their reasons for firing him are somewhat nebulous. He was never given the real status of a columnist. Instead, he was simply given a blog. The blog did not have a high profile (no links from the front page… can be found on the opinion page in the bottom left-hand corner). Yet he had a loyal following. I guess one of my questions is what does a columnist need to do in order to get fired? If a columnist is completely wrong on multiple occasions, does that get you fired? Charles Krauthammer’s been so wrong for so long it’s hard to imagine anyone being less correct. He continues to advocate for torture. So, if advocating for torture doesn’t get you fired… then maybe being a liberal and standing up for liberal principles may be the problem.

There was a very interesting story that the New York Times posted yesterday about their reporter David Rohde. He was kidnapped by the Taliban seven months ago. He somehow managed to escape and he found a Pakistani army scout who took them to a nearby army base. Congratulations to David. Unfortunately, his driver who was also kidnapped did not escape. It will be interesting to see if the Americans or the Pakistanis find the location of this Taliban base.

Finally, conservatives continue to complain that Barack Obama has not been outspoken enough about the Iranian uprising. If we’ve learned nothing from the past eight years we have clearly learned that words have consequences. After George Bush confronted the Iranian government and called them part of the Axis of Evil, they accelerated their nuclear program. They are now closer than ever to developing a nuclear bomb. George W. Bush inflamed Iranians and Muslims with his rhetoric. Barack Obama has been more cautious and thoughtful, in my opinion. He released a statement yesterday that some may describe as timid. Former Secretaries of State Burzynski and Kissinger have supported Obama’s approach. Even George Will has called criticism of Obama’s approach “foolish.” The death of this young Iranian woman at the hands of the Iranian police could have significant repercussions.

Graphic Video of a woman who died in the Iranian protests:

Tags: Civil Rights, Iran, Media by ecthompson md
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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.

Photos of the chaos.

From NYT:

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…)

Update from the BBC:

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…)

Tags: Iran by ecthompson md
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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.

From WaPo:

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.

Tags: Iran, Obama administration, Party Politics by ecthompson md
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Matthew Yglesias sums up my feelings exactly:

Robert Farley:

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.

Tags: Iran, Media by ecthompson md
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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?

Tags: Healthcare, Iran, Sports by ecthompson md
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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.

Great Healthcare summary here.  BTW, the Swine Flu is still here and doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.  There are now over 17,000 cases and 45 deaths.  The World Health Organization has declared a pandemic and the MSM yawned.

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.

Updates: I forgot that the Pittsburgh Penguins won the Stanley Cup yesterday. I’m sorry. I grew up in Dallas. I still don’t get hockey and I have this problem with Pittsburgh. Still.

The shuttle was scheduled to takeoff today (Saturday), but there appears to be a hydrogen leak. This is a problem.

Tags: Economy, Healthcare, Iran, National Intelligence, Obama administration, Party Politics, Terrorism, Torture by ecthompson md
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General David Petraeus sat down with Fox News.  He talked about Gitmo and torture and is thoughtful and candid. I think when the Fox anchor worries about putting the terrorist into our legal system, Petraeus gives a nice answer. ”You have to believe in our legal system.” I like that answer.

Tags: Al Qaeda, Iran, Military, Obama administration by ecthompson md
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I have a couple of computers in my home office. One is primarily for blogging and the other is for everything else. Well, the ‘everything else’ computer had a power supply/motherboard problem. Once I fixed those, it seemed had a hard drive issue also. Reloading everything that I had on that computer is taking some time. Some programs just are not working well for me. So, I’m reloading Windows.

I’m saying all of this as an excuse for not blogging as much as usual.

I will add one bit of news. The New York Times is reporting a new poll which shows that blacks, whites and Latinos perceive American race relations differently. No duh!!!

Oh, I have to add this interrogation video. It speaks for itself. I’ll look for other versions without a commentator yacking over it.

Here’s that interrogation video. This kid was reportedly 15 or 16 years old at the time of his video. He is a Canadian citizen.

Tags: Afghanistan, Blogging issues, Iran, Torture by ecthompson md
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CBS’ Lara Logan reports from Afghanistan. She interviews an Afghan warlord who has been killing American soldiers and evading American capture. Once again, this report shows us that Afghanistan isn’t fixed. We have a lot of work to do in Afghanistan. We need to build roads. We need to stop the exporting of poppy. We must extend the reach of the government beyond Kandahar.

Tags: Afghanistan, Iran by ecthompson md
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Straight and to the point, Senator Barack Obama directly responded to President Bush’s appeasement comment and then turned to Senator John McCain. Obama correctly stated that McCain has offered to differentiate between himself and George Bush on foreign policy.

Below are Obama’s remarks in South Dakota.

From the Washington Post: “If George Bush and John McCain want to have a debate about protecting America, that is a debate I will have anytime, any place,” he said to a cheering crowd. “George Bush and John McCain have a lot to answer for.”

Obama then launched into list of grievances, including a war fought on the premise of uprooting weapons of mass destruction that were never found, the failure to catch Osama Bin Laden and turning Iran into the “greatest beneficiary” of the Iraq war.

“That’s the Bush-McCain record on protecting this country,” Obama said. “Those are the failed policies that John McCain wants to double down on.”

The senator’s comments came in response to President Bush’s speech before the Israeli Knesset yesterday, in which he likened a willingness to meet with “terrorists and radicals” to appeasement of the Nazis.

“That’s exactly the kind of appalling attack that’s divided our country and alienates us from the world,” Obama said. “And that’s exactly why we need change.”

Finally, there are a group of Democrats who believe that Obama hasn’t shown enough passion on the campaign trail. Well, I thought he showed plenty of passion in this speech.

Obama confronts Bush and McCain [ 9:31 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Election 2008, Iran by ecthompson md
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President George W. Bush was addressing the Knesset (Israel’s Parliament) today. Bush said: “Some seem to believe we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: ‘Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.’ We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.”

Somebody please help me. Who said anything about appeasement? Pat Buchanan pointed out that the Bush administration negotiated with Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi. He gave up his nuclear ambitions. We tried the hard line with North Korea and they made more nuclear weapons during the Bush administration than in their history. We tried the hard line against Iran and they are clearly stronger now than since the late 1970′s.

Barack Obama had a thoughtful statement: “It is time to turn the page on eight years of policies that have strengthened Iran and failed to secure America or our ally Israel. Instead of tough talk and no action, we need to do what Kennedy, Nixon and Reagan did and use all elements of American power — including tough, principled and direct diplomacy — to pressure countries like Iran and Syria.”

It appears to me that Bush is trying to go out of his way to prove how bad his administration truly is. I’m not sure that he did Senator John McCain any favors.

Tags: Iran, Israel by ecthompson md
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