Ask TJ: Neil Rogers' producer hassle is not schtick by Tom Jicha Q. I love Neil Rogers. Last week I heard him talking about the station attempting to get rid of Jorge Rodriguez. Is this for real or just more of Neil's schtick? Neil has enough power that I doubt they could get rid of Jorge unless Neil agreed to it. J.Y., e-mail
Boy playing with toy gun is shot by sheriff's deputy by Los Angeles Times A boy in Palmdale who was playing cops and robbers with a toy gun was shot and wounded Sunday night by a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy, authorities said.The boy was shot in the upper torso, said Deputy Ed Hernandez, a sheriff's spokesman. He declined to release the victim's name or age. A witness told reporters for KABC-TV Channel 7 that the boy was 15.
Edwards staffers would have sabotaged own campaign over affair by Jeremy Gantz & David Edwards It's pure political gossip about a long-gone campaign – but it sure is juicy.On his talk show Sunday morning, George Stephanopoulos reported that he has talked to a handful of former John Edwards campaign staffers who say they would have sabotaged their boss's campaign if it had looked like he was going to win the Democratic nomination.
Prosecuting Torture: Is Time Really Running Out? by Elizabeth de la Vega "My ship Liberty sailed away on a bloody red horizonThe groundskeeper opened the gates and let the wild dogs run."- Bruce Springsteen, "Livin' in the Future"When the highest officials of our nation flung open the gates of law and morality and let the wild dogs of torture run, they set in motion a constellation of potentially-indictable federal crimes. While I do not think a grand jury investigation into those violations should be publicly initiated right now, (for strategic reasons discussed here), I do agree entirely with Senator Sheldon Whitehouse that the Attorney General must not rule out prosecutions for these violations. In the May 4, 2009, National Law Journal, the Democrat from Rhode Island writes: "The factual record ... has not been fully developed and reviewed - and no good prosecutor would make a final determination until all the facts are in." As usual, the former US Attorney has it exactly right. No responsible prosecutor would do that and, indeed, as long as the record is unfolding, the Attorney General wouldn't be able to render any meaningful final "verdict" of no prosecution even if he wanted to. (And, certainly, no potential defendant could hold him to it.) So - regardless of what the prognosis for prosecution appears to be on any given day - it is critical to keep those revelations coming, as well as to support proposals for a non-partisan commission that will publicly air all the facts, and, most important, not give up on eventual indictments.
Get Ready by William Rivers Pitt "The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience."- Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.The news of Supreme Court Justice David Souter's imminent retirement hit Washington, DC, to paraphrase Hunter S. Thompson, like a dung bomb. Not that there isn't a great sense of excitement over the prospect of what the next few months will almost certainly bring. There is, of course; a Supreme Court nomination is about as high-stakes a game as you get, where political fortunes have been won and lost many times, and with historic consequences. The defeated Bork nomination unleashed twenty years of conservative vengeance, while the successful Thomas nomination signaled the beginning of a long ebb-tide for Democratic Party power and influence.
Move over Joe the Plumber, here comes Carrie the Model by Bill Berkowitz In what some like to think of as "post-culture war" America, consider the case of Carrie Prejean. Responding to a question about same-sex marriage asked by Perez Hilton, a pageant judge and celebrity gossip uber-blogger, on April 19, during the nationally televised Miss USA pageant -- Prejean said:
A glossary of Republican doublespeak by Jaime O'Neill — from the San Francisco ChronicleThe Republican universe is a bit topsy-turvy, rather like the one created by Lewis Carroll in "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland." In that story, the Queen of Hearts did not restrict herself to the generally accepted meaning of words. When she used a word, she said, it meant exactly what she wanted it to mean, no more and no less. It was good to be queen.
The Future of the American Dream by William Greider As Franklin Roosevelt understood, Americans will postpone immediate gratification and endure hard sacrifices--if they must--so long as they are convinced the future can be better than the past. But we face a far more difficult problem at our moment in history. What do you promise people who have been told they can have anything they want, who are repeatedly congratulated for living in the best of all possible circumstances? How do you tell them "the good times," as we have known them, are not coming back? Americans need a new vision that helps them deal with reality, a promising story of the future that helps them let go of the past.
Auto Bailout Could Export American Jobs by Brent Budowsky If you look closely at the way the auto bailout is being managed, it appears that one of the major results will be that American taxpayers’ money will be used to move automotive jobs away from America, into low-wage foreign nations. This is what happens when a bailout is treated like an investment banking problem, not a business-rebuilding or job-creating program. A taxpayer bailout should not move jobs from the Midwest to low-wage nations.
American Expression: Card Companies Resisting Reforms by Danny Schechter Will The US Senate Pass Long Needed Reforms Of Credit Card Abuses?I was recently advised by American Express, a company whose credit cards I pay in full each and every month, and with whom I have been a paying "member" since l981, that my credit card limit is being cut. I have become unworthy.
The Obama Administration is Becoming a Stand-Up Comedy Act by Dave Lindorff What a joke the Obama administration is becoming, as it keeps trying to prop up failing industry after failing industry.First we had the president becoming First Car Salesman, offering federal guarantees for GM and Chrysler car warrantees so that potential car customers wouldn't turn away from those two companies' showrooms fearing that the manufacturers would go bust and leave them holding the bag. Then he started touting the cars themselves, saying they were "great products" and that people should go out and buy them.
The Big "Con": Taliban take Pakistan and it's "Another 9/11" by Michael Collins A strange feeling of déjà vu arises while listening to the administration sell further U.S. military intervention in Pakistan (our Predator drones are already there).Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen claimed in late March that Pakistan's intelligence service has "close links with al Qaeda and the Taliban network." In fact, Mullen warned, the Pakistani intelligence service, ISI, is "offering logistical support to them (the Taliban)."
Becoming What We Seek to Destroy by Chris Hedges The bodies of dozens, perhaps well over a hundred, women, children and men, their corpses blown into bits of human flesh by iron fragmentation bombs dropped by U.S. warplanes in a village in the western province of Farah, illustrates the futility of the Afghan war. We are not delivering democracy or liberation or development. We are delivering massive, sophisticated forms of industrial slaughter. And because we have employed the blunt and horrible instrument of war in a land we know little about and are incapable of reading, we embody the barbarism we claim to be seeking to defeat.
Cheney: I’d take Limbaugh over Powell as GOP member by David Edwards and Jeremy Gantz Endorsing a Democrat is no different from becoming a Democrat, according to former Vice President Dick Cheney.Appearing on CBS’ Face the Nation Sunday morning, Cheney said that he thought Colin Powell had left the Republican Party by supporting Barack Obama for president last year.
US accused of illegal white phosphorus attack in Afghanistan by Stephen C. Webster United States forces in Afghanistan are accused of illegally deploying white phosphorus against civilians following a firefight with Taliban militants, according to published reports.White phosphorus is legal to use on a battlefield but illegal to deploy for any reason other than illumination. The chemical ignites on contact with the air. Human rights groups said using the substance in populated, civilian areas is a war crime, but the United States is not a signatory to any treaty which entirely bans its use.
Harry, Louise and Barack by Paul Krugman Is this the end for Harry and Louise?Harry and Louise were the fictional couple who appeared in advertisements run by the insurance industry in 1993, fretting about what would happen if “government bureaucrats” started making health care decisions. The ads helped kill the Clinton health care plan, and have stood, ever since, as a symbol of the ability of powerful special interests to block health care reform.
Liar, liar, panties on fire by Doug Thompson Declassified Central Intelligence Agency documents show Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi knew seven years ago that we were torturing detainees.Shouldn't surprise anyone. Pelosi is, always has been and always will be, a liar.The daughter of one of the most corrupt mayors of Baltimore -- a city known for spawning fast-talking con artists -- claims she was only told that such tactics were under consideration.
Stimulus money not going where it's needed most by Matt Apuzzo and Brett J. Blackledge Counties suffering the most from job losses stand to receive the least help from President Barack Obama's plan to spend billions of stimulus dollars on roads and bridges, an Associated Press analysis has found.Although the intent of the money is to put people back to work, AP's review of more than 5,500 planned transportation projects nationwide reveals that states are planning to spend the stimulus in communities where jobless rates are already lower.
