It’s kind of like paying attention to this woman. Why do we care what a washed up actor thinks about anything? This made me want to puke.

Thanks to Raw Story for the tip-off (although I originally heard about it on this (not so) little (and incredibly hilarious) fart-joke radio show.

Fire John Yoo activists play with vowels

Obama attorneys defend torture memo author

ACORN: The path to meaningful reform from Nonprofit Quarterly

Climate summit in disarray after ‘Danish text’ leak from Guardian

US tax dollars help fund Taliban attacks from Raw Story

Talking Points Memo launches a DC bureau from AJR

NPR reporter pressured over Fox News role from Politico

5 corporate publishers team up for Hulu of magazines from Huff Po

Why progressive activists are giving Obama a pass from FDL

E Pluribus Unum KCSB, brief history from Santa Barbara Independent

Canadian record industry faces liability over ‘infringement’

With all the talk of climate change doubters and people who think, “Man, diesel engines and burning chemicals have no effect on our natural environment,” we started looking around at polling data. What are the numbers? What do Americans really believe?

Not surprisingly — sadly, not surprisingly at all — we ran across an article on Raw Story with the headline: “More Americans believe in angels than humans’ role in global warming.”

UGH!

We considered cutting select portions out of this piece and sharing them, but it’s all worth a read, so here (with just a few trims):

More Americans believe in guardian angels than humans’ role in global warming, according to recent polls.

A Pew poll released late last month found that just 36 percent of Americans believe humans are responsible for accelerating global climate change, which scientists say mushroomed after the industrial revolution due to humans’ dependence on carbon-based fuels.

But a near-consensus from scientists doesn’t have Americans convinced. The Pew poll found that while 57 percent believe that the earth’s climate is changing, just 36 percent believe that humans are responsible. 77 percent believed that global warming existed in Pew’s poll conducted in 2007.

The 36 percent who believe in human-caused climate change is fewer than the number of Americans who apparently believe they’re protected by guardian angels, some 55 percent, according to a poll published in 2008.

“Half of all Americans believe they are protected by guardian angels, one-fifth say they’ve heard God speak to them, one-quarter say they have witnessed miraculous healings, 16 percent say they’ve received one and 8 percent say they pray in tongues, according to a survey” conducted by Baylor University published in September of 2008.

The Baylor survey was conducted in 2007 by telephone calls to 1,648 adults, who were asked more than 300 questions about their spiritual beliefs.

That’s not all. A blog at the website of Foreign Policy notes that more Americans believe in UFOs and ghosts than do anthropogenic (human-caused) global warming.

34 percent of Americans said they believed in UFOs and ghosts in a Halloween 2007 survey conducted by Ipsos for the Associated Press.

Just 39 percent of Americans said in a February poll that they believe in evolution.

These are your Sarah Palin fans, your Glenn Beck listeners and your “Are you smarter than a fifth grader” viewers. They believe in UFOs, ghosts, angels, a preemptive style of foreign policy, creationism and, presumably, Big Foot. So for everyone out there who thinks it’s weird that entire glaciers melt in a decade now — chalking it up to human actions — look at those numbers again. Do you think these are people you can reason with?

… said the ever-astute Michael Moore on Larry King Live according to an article at Raw Story (h/t PrisonPlanet).

“I hate to be even saying these things,” Moore told King in conclusion, “because I honestly think Barack Obama is a good and decent man. He has a good heart. I believe he’s a man of peace. … I don’t think there’s any evil or dark place in his heart that’s where this is coming from. I just think that he’s listened to the generals. He’s taken bad advice.”

And as the capitalist film maker cried and pleaded with Barack Obama to not send even more troops to the money pit called Afghanistan, he was quick to add, “I feel very bad for him.”

Michael Moore,

Decent men of peace with good hearts would not bomb innocent people with drones. Would not cover up for the war crimes of his predecessor. Would not first condemn, then proceed with indefinite detention. Would not continue tribunals to avoid the justice of due process. Would not allow the corporate ravaging of our tax money. Would not protect telecom companies from their illegal activities. Would not lie about lobbyists in his administration. If there isn’t a dark place in his cold heart, then he is a damned stupid man.

Did you ever actually believe that this man was going to do anything other than what he always said he would do? Fight the good war?

I don’t believe you. I believe you have an ulterior motive. I believe you are doing a wide stance ‘cover thy ass’ for your asinine insistence that America vote for this Corporatist war mongering maniac and for your wimping out on your fight against two party politics. You pussed out, man. Sane people know this.

There are plenty of us sane ones who are aware of your flip-flop and how much influence you had in this election.

You should be ashamed for your lack of principle and should admit your mistake, make amends by stopping this defense of this man and turn back to fighting AGAINST the two party, corporatist sham. This little interview does little to make up for your horrendous errors. Tears or not.

Even though a Bush-era request to conduct blanket searches of computer files was rebuked by judges, the Obama administration is now pushing to have the decision reversed, according to court documents filed the week of Thanksgiving.

U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan, an Obama appointee, and twenty other government attorneys submitted a brief to the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals, making a very extraordinary request. They want their position heard again, this time by all 27 judges in the region.

In August, an “en banc” panel of 11 judges from the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals decided federal prosecutors went too far when they seized the drug test results of 104 pro baseball players five years earlier. The ruling included guidelines for computer search conduct designed to protect Fourth Amendment privacy rights, in the style of Miranda rights.

Chief Judge Alex Kozinski wrote at the time that the government “must maintain the privacy of materials that are intermingled with seizable materials, and … avoid turning a limited search for particular information into a general search of office file systems and computer databases.”

In 2006, the 9th Circuit initially sided with the Bush administration against the Major League Baseball Players Association in a 2-1 decision.

Back in 2003, the warrant in the hands of the prosecutors allowed them to search urinalysis records of ten pro baseball players at a Long Beach drug-testing facility. They claimed the information on other players found in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet was in plain sight, and therefore lawful. But the Court of Appeals argued agents could have selected, copied and pasted only the rows listing the specific players named in the search warrant.

Instead they scrolled to the right side of the spreadsheet to peek at the test results of each player. The names of four players not linked to the warranted BALCO investigation were later leaked to The New York Times. In the public eye, power-hitters David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez, Alex Rodriguez and Sammy Sosa may never scrub clean the taint. Sosa will be eligible for the Hall of Fame in 2013, along with controversial star Barry Bonds.

The player’s union accused The Times of breaking the law. “The leaking of information under a court seal is a crime,” he said in a statement. “The active pursuit of information that may not lawfully be disclosed because it is under court seal is a crime.”

Michael Schmidt, the reporter, insists he did nothing wrong, “It is the choice of the source to talk. I believe it is legal and ethical for me to ask questions of people who may be covered by court orders.”

During the slow news week of Thanksgiving the Obama administration took action, seeking to reverse the 3-month old decision. Wired Magazine and libertarians had applauded the dramatic reductions to the government’s search-and-seizure powers, but the government now claims “computer searches have ground to a complete halt” in some districts.

Inside a 27-page brief submitted to the San Francisco-based court Nov. 23 (and made available on the Wired Magazine website) Solicitor General Kagan and twenty other undersigned government attorneys insist the 9th Circuit Appeals judges must “withdraw the en banc panel’s decision.” In other words, throw out the 11-judge ruling and review the case again with all 27 of its judges, an unprecedented request.

“The United States is mindful that this Court has never granted full court en banc,” the brief states. “Indeed, the federal government has never asked the Court to do so. But the broad issues unnecessarily addressed in the en banc panel’s opinion are of surpassing importance and compel that extraordinary action.”

The court said rather than copy an entire drive, the government should cull the specific data described in its search warrant. Otherwise, use an independent third party to comb through files under court supervision, providing nothing else to government agents. So, which Fourth Amendment protections are unnecessary?

The government is pointing to a nauseating rape case to argue investigators are now the ones in handcuffs. “Agents did not obtain a warrant to search the suspects’ computers,” the government wrote, “because of concerns that any evidence discovered about other potential victims could not be disclosed by the filter team.”

After the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the last avenue available to the solicitor general would be a review from the Supreme Court.

This story was originally written for RawStory.com by Gavin Dahl.

Listen to Free Speech Radio News special on resegregation of American schools

Amy Goodman ‘violated’ by Canadian border officials

US scuttled consensus building, was hellbent on Iraq War

Blackwater lawyers accuse DOJ of misconduct

ACORN reprieve sparks GOP fury from The Raw Story

How is Newt Gingrich not a lobbyist? from Firedoglake

Tony Blair covered up British military plans for a full Iraq invasion throughout 2002, claiming at the time that Britain’s objective was “disarmament, not regime change.”

This and many other damning details are revealed in hundreds of pages of secret government reports obtained by The Sunday Telegraph.

Full transcripts include classified interviews with frustrated British Army commanders and Whitehall officials. Commanders wrote dozens of “post-operational reports” and the Army compiled two “overall lessons learnt” papers.

According to The Telegraph, the leaked report condemns the almost complete absence of contingency planning as a potential breach of Geneva Convention obligations to safeguard civilians. Coalition forces were “ill-prepared and equipped to deal with the problems in the first 100 days” of the occupation.

Blair’s lies to Parliament and the public, widespread problems with the Army’s supply chain and radio systems, and poor planning for “once Baghdad had fallen” are now confirmed in the public eye.

Particularly egregious are statements Blair made to Parliament in the build up to the invasion. On Sept 24, 2002, Mr. Blair told members of the British Parliament, “In respect of any military options, we are not at the stage of deciding those options but, of course, it is important — should we get to that point — that we have the fullest possible discussion of those options.”

The Telegraph reports, however, that according to leaked documents, “formation-level planning for a deployment took place from February 2002.”

The documents quote British Maj. Gen. Graeme Lamb, director of special forces during the war, as saying: “I had been working the war up since early 2002.”

Former Whitehall civil servant Sir John Chilcot is due to begin an inquiry into Iraq this week. Many of the leaked documents will very likely be seen by Chilcot’s committee, but it is unknown whether the tribunal will publish them.

Relatives of the dead, senior military officers and a few members of the press hope the Iraq Inquiry will not be a simple whitewash.

This story was written for RawStory.com by Gavin Dahl.

Conservative columnist David Brooks just went public again with his criticisms of Sarah Palin. “She’s a joke. I can’t take her seriously,” he told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.

The question other members of the press are asking is whether he will codify his statements in print at The New York Times this time around.

A month before last year’s presidential election Brooks admitted to a forum in Manhattan that Palin was “not even close” to qualified for higher office. However, he failed to reveal the opinion in multiple columns after the comment. At the time, he was called “frighteningly dishonest” by Editor & Publisher’s Greg Mitchell, who suggested he should debate himself on PBS.

There was little debate, however, on This Week Sunday. The other conservative on the panel with Brooks, George Will, isn’t buying into the Palin frenzy either.

Will said he thinks Republicans can do better. “Some conservatives think they have found in Sarah Palin a Republican William Jennings Bryan,” he said. “Now, why would they want someone who lost the presidency three times?”

Brooks may have also alluded to his feelings about Mike Huckabee’s presidential hopes, adding, “The idea that this potential talk show host is considered seriously for the Republican nomination, believe me, it will never happen.

“Republican primary voters are not going to elect a talk show host,” he said.

See the video of Brooks where the story was originally published on The Raw Story.

KBR, Inc.—a recently former subsidiary of Halliburton and profiteer of the Iraq War, which is the largest non-union construction company in the U.S.—faces a class-action lawsuit claiming burning waste exposed 100,000 Iraqis and foreign troops to cancer-causing toxins, Daniel Tencer reports at The Raw Story.

by Daniel Tencer

9 Nov 09 | Raw Story

Defense contractor KBR may have exposed as many as 100,000 people, including U.S. troops, to cancer-causing toxins by burning waste in open-air pits in Iraq, says a series of class-action lawsuits filed against the company.

At least 22 separate lawsuits claiming KBR poisoned American soldiers in Iraq have been combined into a single massive lawsuit that says KBR, which until not long ago was a subsidiary of Halliburton, sought to save money by disposing of toxic waste and incinerating numerous potentially harmful substances in open-air “burn pits.”

According to one of the lawsuits (PDF), filed in a federal court in Nashville, KBR burned “tires, lithium batteries … biohazard materials (including human corpses), medical supplies (including those used during smallpox inoculations), paints, solvents, asbestos insulation, items containing pesticides, polyvinyl chloride pipes, animal carcasses, dangerous chemicals, and hundreds of thousands of plastic water bottles.”

And they did so within plain sight of U.S. troops operating in Iraq, the lawsuit states. “In some instances, the burn pit smoke was so bad that it interfered with the military mission,” the Nashville lawsuit states. “For example, the military located at Camp Bucca, a detention facility, had difficulty guarding the facility as a result of the smoke.”

The plaintiffs note that the military “did not prevent” KBR from disposing of the waste “in a safe manner that would not have harmed plaintiffs. The military wanted the defendants to solve the burn pit problems.”

The lawsuit “claims at least 100,000 people were endangered by the contractors’ ‘utter indifference to and conscious disregard’ of troops’ welfare,” notes the Courthouse News Service.

At a hearing of the Senate Democratic Policy Committee on Friday, Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) said that KBR continues to use burn pits at the U.S.’s largest base in Iraq.

“The Army and the contractor in charge of this waste disposal—Kellogg, Brown, and Root—made frequent and unnecessary use of these burn pits and exposed thousands of U.S. troops to toxic smoke,” Dorgan said. “Burn pits are still used at the Balad Airbase in Iraq, which is the largest U.S. base in that country.”

A 2008 report by the Pentagon asserted that “adverse health risks are unlikely” from the burn pits, but that assertion was challenged by retired Lt. Col. Darrin Curtis, a biomedical sciences officer who took some of the air samples used in the report.

“Although I have no hard data, I believe that the burn pits may be responsible for long-term health problems in many individuals,” the Air Force Times quoted Curtis as saying. “I think we are going to look at a lot of sick people.”

The lawsuit “claims at least 100,000 people were endangered by the contractors’ ‘utter indifference to and conscious disregard’ of troops’ welfare,” notes the Courthouse News Service.

At a hearing of the Senate Democratic Policy Committee on Friday, Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) said that KBR continues to use burn pits at the U.S.’s largest base in Iraq.

“The Army and the contractor in charge of this waste disposal—Kellogg, Brown, and Root—made frequent and unnecessary use of these burn pits and exposed thousands of U.S. troops to toxic smoke,” Dorgan said. “Burn pits are still used at the Balad Airbase in Iraq, which is the largest U.S. base in that country.”

A 2008 report by the Pentagon asserted that “adverse health risks are unlikely” from the burn pits, but that assertion was challenged by retired Lt. Col. Darrin Curtis, a biomedical sciences officer who took some of the air samples used in the report.

“Although I have no hard data, I believe that the burn pits may be responsible for long-term health problems in many individuals,” the Air Force Times quoted Curtis as saying. “I think we are going to look at a lot of sick people.”

A report stated ‘real unemployment could be around an all-time high 17.5%. Gerald Celente, a trends forecaster and economist, tells Russia Today that under the algorithm used before the Clinton Administration, ‘real unemployment could be around 22.1% (4:09):

True U.S. Unemployment Rate Stands at 17.5%

by Stephen Webster

7 Nov 09 | Raw Story

According to figures released by the Department of Labor, the real marker of American unemployment stands at 17.5 percent—a figure which takes into account under-employed workers and those who have not sought work in the last four weeks, according to a published report.

“If statistics went back so far, the measure would almost certainly be at its highest level since the Great Depression,” reporter David Leonhardt wrote in Friday’s edition of The New York Times.

The report continued: “In all, more than one out of every six workers—17.5 percent—were unemployed or underemployed in October. The previous recorded high was 17.1 percent, in December 1982.”

While official unemployment statistics were not available during the Great Depression, Department of Labor economists working with the Times estimated that some 30 percent of the U.S. workforce was put out during that period, the report added.

President Barack Obama called the figures “sobering,” responding to widespread media accounts that placed the figure just over 10 percent, noting the department’s calculation of workers who are actively searching for jobs.

“To that end, my economic team is looking at ideas such as additional investments in our aging roads and bridges, incentives to create jobs and steps to increase the flow of credit to small businesses,” the president said.

Fred Dickson at D.A. Davidson & Co. said the report “continues to point to an economy that is struggling, but the picture is not nearly as dire as seen at the beginning of the year.”

“Slowly, the trajectory is improving, but, given the huge number of unemployed and underemployed, our view of a very slow economic recovery in 2010 and 2011 remains very much in place,” he added. “This report will not do much to encourage the Fed to raise rates anytime soon.”

The number of unemployed persons increased to 15.7 million. Since the start of the recession in December 2007, the number of unemployed has risen by 8.2 million, the Labor Department said.

The world’s largest economy grew at a seasonally adjusted 3.5 percent annual rate in the July-September period. The increase was the first since the second quarter of 2008.

For the U.S. economic community, the recession will not be over until it is declared by a research panel, National Bureau of Economic Research, recognized as the official arbiter of business cycles.

President Obama on Friday signed a measure to extend unemployment benefits and enact a new tax credit for home buyers.

By Daniel Tencer at The Raw Story

The CIA relied on intelligence based on torture in prisons in Uzbekistan, a place where widespread torture practices include raping suspects with broken bottles and boiling them alive, says a former British ambassador to the central Asian country.

Craig Murray, the rector of the University of Dundee in Scotland and until 2004 the UK’s ambassador to Uzbekistan, said the CIA not only relied on confessions gleaned through extreme torture, it sent terror war suspects to Uzbekistan as part of its extraordinary rendition program.

“I’m talking of people being raped with broken bottles,” he said at a lecture late last month that was re-broadcast by the Real News Network. “I’m talking of people having their children tortured in front of them until they sign a confession. I’m talking of people being boiled alive. And the intelligence from these torture sessions was being received by the CIA, and was being passed on.”

Human rights groups have long been raising the alarm about the legal system in Uzbekistan. In 2007, Human Rights Watch declared that torture is “endemic” to the country’s justice system.

Murray said he only realized after his stint as ambassador that the CIA was sending people to be tortured in Uzbekistan, country he describes as a “totalitarian” state that has never moved on from its communist era, when it was a part of the Soviet Union.

Suspects in Uzbekistan’s gulags “were being told to confess to membership in Al Qaeda. They were told to confess they’d been in training camps in Afghanistan. They were told to confess they had met Osama bin Laden in person. And the CIA intelligence constantly echoed these themes.”

“I was absolutely stunned — it changed my whole world view in an instant — to be told that London knew [the intelligence] coming from torture, that it was not illegal because our legal advisers had decided that under the United Nations convention against torture, it is not illegal to obtain or use intelligence gained from torture as long as we didn’t do the torture ourselves,” Murray said.

IT’S THE PIPELINE, STUPID

Murray asserts that the primary motivation for US and British military involvement in central Asia has to do with large natural gas deposits in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. As evidence, he points to the plans to build a natural gas pipeline through Afghanistan that would allow Western oil companies to avoid Russia and Iran when transporting natural gas out of the region.

Murray alleged that in the late 1990s the Uzbek ambassador to the US met with then-Texas Governor George W. Bush to discuss a pipeline for the region, and out of that meeting came agreements that would see Texas-based Enron gain the rights to Uzbekistan’s natural gas deposits, while oil company Unocal worked on developing the Trans-Afghanistan pipeline.

“The consultant who was organizing this for Unocal was a certain Mr. Karzai, who is now president of Afghanistan,” Murray noted.

Murray said part of the motive in hyping up the threat of Islamic terrorism in Uzbekistan through forced confessions was to ensure the country remained on-side in the war on terror, so that the pipeline could be built.

“There are designs of this pipeline, and if you look at the deployment of US forces in Afghanistan, as against other NATO country forces in Afghanistan, you’ll see that undoubtedly the US forces are positioned to guard the pipeline route. It’s what it’s about. It’s about money, it’s about oil, it’s not about democracy.”

The Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline is slated to be completed in 2014, with $7.6 billion in funding from the Asian Development Bank.

Murray was dismissed from his position as ambassador in 2004, following his first public allegations that the British government relied on torture in Uzbekistan for intelligence.

The following videos were posted to YouTube by the Real News Network on Oct. 26 and Nov. 4, 2009.

Media Democracy Coalition’s Hannah Miller rallies against blocked political speech

Supreme Court likely to allow more corporate money in politics

Administration uses ‘State Secrets’ clause to block warrantless wiretap cases

Court rules victim of extraordinary rendition can’t sue from Raw Story

Pirate Cat Radio fined $10,000: East-Bay Express and SF Weekly

Is global warming a corporate fraud? from Project Censored

Real reason climate bill is going to suck from Grist

Palestinians criticize US u-turn on settlements

Detroit Free Press takes editorial cues from advertisers

Congress should not reject the Goldstone Report from Common Dreams

Where are the anti-war demonstrators? from Common Dreams

What Obama is up against from Truthout

MPAA piracy facts unchecked on 60 Minutes

MPAA press release urges FCC to protect content

Bit Torrent’s new peer-to-peer software throttles itself

Nielsen says DTV switch was successful

Paramount says National Broadband Plan should stop Star Trek pirates

Jerry Brown’s spokesman resigns after taping calls

AP admits Cheney equivocated to the FBI

We need a Son of Sam law for coporations from True/Slant

Comcast close to gaining NBC Universal

Brazil encourages competing hackers to crack e-voting terminals

Sen. Cantwell not sure why Geithner still has a job

Service providers in UK ’should have legal obligation on rural broadband’

Three’s company by Ross Douthat

Capitalism: A Love Story

Filmmaker Michael Moore told CNN’s Larry King that it’s time for President Barack Obama to wind down the war in Afghanistan. “It’s unwinnable. It’s immoral. It’s illegal. It’s wrong,” he said. “We need to leave.”

Moore appeared on the program Thursday along with another war critic, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas).

“It is my sincere hope that he decides to wind down and end this war, at least our part of this war, in Afghanistan,” Moore said. “Initially, the idea of going and trying to capture the criminals who committed a mass murder on 9/11, that was a good idea. But we never did that.

“There is no middle ground,” he stated emphatically. “You’re either going to go all out and fight a big war that can’t be won, or you’re going to bring the troops home and focus on the problems that we have right now — huge unemployment, global warming, a health care mess, all these things, our educational system, everything.”

Moved by Obama’s attendance at the transfer of bodies at Dover Air Force Base, something President George W. Bush infamously didn’t do, Moore offered hope that Obama might end the war in Afghanistan.”I’m going to trust in all my heart that he’s going to make the right decision,” he opined.

Yet earlier this month a senior administration official told the press, “What is not on the table, in any sense, is leaving Afghanistan or so narrowly defining our mission as to be the equivalent of leaving Afghanistan.” (After Moore’s appearance, Rep. Paul told King, “I don’t think he’s quite willing to criticize Obama like Bush, but I am.”)

And although King didn’t comment, Moore hammered on the scandal of CIA involvement with the opium trade there. “Yesterday, Larry, that story in The New York Times about how the brother of the president of Afghanistan, the brother of Karzai, is suspected of being involved in the opium trade, which funds the Taliban, and our CIA pays this man. So we’re paying the guy who’s helping to create the money that’s funding the Taliban that’s killing our soldiers. Are we, like, an insane country? When is this going to stop? I want this ended. I want these troops home.”

Moore’s latest film Capitalism: A Love Story has grossed $13 million in five weeks of release. He has now directed four of the eight highest grossing documentaries in U.S. history.

See the video by clicking HERE. This story was originally published on RawStory.com. My Dad wrote a response, see below:

I never jumped on the Michael Moore bandwagon.  He had a
reporter’s sense of what issues might get headlines or sell
papers, but his documentary style was boring and intellectualy
superficial, evolving toward liberal sloppy attack-journalism,
a lame alternative to the calculated right wing impulse that
culminated in the swift-boaters–not to mention Rush of the
exquisite radio voice modulation, who re-validated medicine
shows. Think of the Limbaugh/Moore debates. I would rather
turn them both off and create a college of public health.

But I also heard the interview you reviewed and Moore was
compelling.  Painted himself as a guy who took a controversial
position once before about Iraq, and is taking that
irrefutable position again (rhetorical analysis–>analogical
thinking is always suspect).  Uncle M, concerned about his
nephew Devon Moore, or neice Dorothy Moore, about to have
their legs blown off to protect the opium magnate brother of
Karzai. (Devon and Dorothy are my inventions, but MM’s main
appeal was avuncular rather than analytical.)

I was turned off by Moore’s calculating motives. “I can get
the headlines.” This dislike came on strong when he went out
of his way to slag Keith Olbermann for backing the Iraq
invasion years ago–Moore is pathologically egotistical and
could not transcend his instinct to attack a fellow popular
liberal journalist competing for glory.  Mike! Keith is a
sports announcer after all! Curb your insecurities!

But your review skipped all this complifying static–nailed
the core values that align me with Moore’s message.  We are
learning the hard way like England and Russia in the past.
Given the alternate choice of right wing political duplicity
and historical ignorance, Moore’s foibles become irrelevant if
he can energize serious political debate about marching off
the cliffs into a chasm.

A.C.L.U.: “We are disappointed that the president has signed a law giving the Defense Department the authority to hide evidence of its own misconduct, and we hope the defense secretary will not take advantage of that authority by suppressing photos related to the abuse of prisoners.”

Obama Signs Law Blocking Release of Torture Photos

by Daniel Tencer

30 Oct 09 | Raw Story

President Barack Obama received a great deal of media attention on Wednesday for signing a historic hate-crimes bill into law. But, on the same day, the U.S. president also signed a Homeland Security spending bill that received far less attention, even though it effectively blocks efforts by activists to reveal photos of detainee abuse in U.S. custody.

“We are disappointed that the president has signed a law giving the Defense Department the authority to hide evidence of its own misconduct, and we hope the defense secretary will not take advantage of that authority by suppressing photos related to the abuse of prisoners,” Jameel Jaffer, national security director for the A.C.L.U., said in a statement.

Earlier this month, the House and Senate inserted language into the Homeland Security appropriations bill that would shield photos of detainees in the U.S.’s war on terror from the Freedom of Information Act. The language, which was added at the prodding of Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), effectively blocks an A.C.L.U. lawsuit currently before the courts that would have forced the government to release the photos under Freedom of Information statutes.

As Daphne Eviatar noted at The Washington Independent, “President Obama initially agreed to release the photos, but changed his mind after consulting with Defense Secretary Robert Gates and others at the Pentagon, who warned the photos would endanger U.S. servicemen in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

At issue are 21 photos of detainees in U.S. custody that the Department of Defense has been fighting tooth and nail from releasing. As Raw Story reported earlier this year, those photos may show acts of sexual abuse being carried out against detainees.

Major General Antonio Taguba, the author of a report on allegations of detainee abuse in U.S. prisons in Iraq, said that photos exist depicting the following:

• An American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner.
• A male translator apparently raping a male detainee.
• A female prisoner having her clothing forcibly removed to expose her breasts.

Other photographs depict sexual assaults on prisoners with a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube, according to Taguba.

TRANSFER OF GITMO PRISONERS NOW LEGAL

However, there was some good news for human-rights advocates in the Homeland Security bill. Another provision in the law allows for the transfer of detainees from Guantanamo Bay to U.S. soil for trial.

“The administration should now do exactly that,” the A.C.L.U.’s Jaffer said. “The military commissions at Guantanamo are not just unlawful but unnecessary. The federal courts are fully capable of prosecuting terrorism suspects while protecting both national security interests and fundamental due process.”

President Obama made closing the detention facility for terrorism suspects in Guantanamo Bay a cornerstone of his electoral campaign. Since coming into office, the president has struggled to make good on the promise, slowly shifting detainees out of the facility whenever possible, and facing opposition to the idea that prisoners should be tried in the U.S. from political opponents concerned about national security.

MORE TORTURE DOCS MAY ARRIVE FRIDAY

Some 224 documents related to the Bush administration’s “enhanced interrogation techniques” could be released by the government as early as Friday, says a report at Mother Jones magazine. Among those documents could be a 59-page, 2002 top secret memo from the Pentagon detailing torture techniques.

The Obama administration had intitially believed the documents could be kept from the public under current laws, but upon closer inspection, found that Freedom of Information laws could apply to them, reports Nick Baumann.

However, as Baumann noted, the documents could still be blocked from release—ironically, by the person appointed to look into criminal prosecution of C.I.A. torturers. John Durham, the special prosecutor appointed by Attorney General Eric Holder this summer to investigate abuses in the C.I.A.’s interrogation program, “could conceivably preempt the release of any documents.”

Baumann reported:

In a filing last week in a related case, government lawyers said that Durham was claiming that the release of certain documents could interfere with his investigation and were off-limits. If Durham attempts to block the release of these documents, a court would have to decide whether his assertion of privilege was justified.

RELATED:

• Rights Lawyer Finds C.I.A. Prevented Detainee Deaths to Prolong Torture (Video)
• Nobel Committee: War is Peace
• Report: C.I.A. Covered Up Murder, Performed Mock Executions, Threatened to Kill Children

David Barstow won a Pulitzer Prize for his report at The New York Times on the Bush Administration’s covert propaganda wing of the Pentagon recruiting retired military analysts to manufacture consent for its policies in the media. Pentagon officials “equivocated on the subject of whether the program has ended”, Brad Jacobson reports at The Raw Story.

Pentagon Officials Won’t Confirm Bush Propaganda Program Ended

by Brad Jacobson

29 Oct 09 | Raw Story

[Read Part I and Part II of this series.]

The covert Bush Administration program that used retired military analysts to generate favorable wartime news coverage may not have been terminated, Raw Story has found.

In interviews, Pentagon officials in charge of the press and community relations offices—which worked in partnership on the military analyst program—equivocated on the subject of whether the program has ended.

Last May, the Pentagon’s Office of Inspector General issued a memorandum rescinding a Bush administration investigative report on the retired military analyst program because it “did not meet accepted quality standards for an Inspector General work product.” The now-retracted report had exonerated officials of using propaganda and referred to the program as just “one of many outreach groups.”

Yet Donald Horstman, Pentagon Inspector General deputy director, also stated in the memorandum that his office wouldn’t probe further because the “outreach program has been terminated and responsible senior officials are no longer employed by the [Department of Defense (DoD)].”

Raw Story’s investigation, however, has shown that some “responsible senior officials” are still employed by the Defense Department, including Bryan Whitman, who remains a chief Pentagon spokesman and head of all media operations, and Roxie Merritt, who is head of the Pentagon’s community relations office.

Raw Story has discovered that Horstman’s other justification for not reopening an investigation at the time – “because the [retired military analyst] outreach program has been terminated”—remains an open question.

A week after David Barstow’s New York Times expose on the program broke in April 2008, Whitman said the military analyst program’s suspension was only “temporary.”

Reiterating at the time that he thought the program was merely a way to better inform the American public, he also said, “It’s temporarily suspended just so that we can take a look at some of the concerns.”

When Raw Story asked Mr. Whitman if this program was still being run out of the Pentagon, he first replied firmly, “No, not at this point.”

But then, in what seemed an attempt to downplay his role in the program, he quickly added, “Again, it’s not one of my programs and it would be up to the leadership of public affairs, a new assistant secretary of defense, making any sort of determination to go forward if they deemed it appropriate, necessary, whatever.”

“It’s hard for me to tell what future leadership might decide to do,” Whitman continued. “Again, since it’s not part of the media operations aspect of public affairs here, it’s not a program for which I will be making a decision about.”

Raw Story also asked Roxie Merritt if she could confirm that the military analyst program has been officially terminated.

Ms. Merritt, in an email interview, first replied, “[A]t the present time, we don’t have regularly scheduled conference calls with retired military analysts” but that “we would not, however, preclude responding to queries for information from or provide future opportunities for them to talk to defense leaders and program managers.”

Merritt also noted that should there be regularly scheduled conference calls with the military analysts again in the future, they would be shared in various publicly accessible formats.

She added, though, “Obviously, there are operational security and privacy act issues and other government regulations that must be handled carefully, but we make every possible effort to be open and transparent.”

Asked then to confirm if, in the interim, her office has been open to providing information on an individual basis to retired military analysts, Merritt replied, “Sure. If asked, we would provide them with the same information that we would provide you if you had a question about DoD.”

During the interviews, neither Whitman nor Merritt expressed concern about the way the military analyst program was run by the Bush Administration.

Iraq then and Afghanistan now

Internal Pentagon documents show that the military analyst program was stepped up in 2005, when U.S. public support for the war in Iraq began to sour. Today, as recent polls show American support for the war in Afghanistan plummeting, the Pentagon and the Obama White House are facing a similar problem.

If the military analyst program, in some form or another, is still being run from the Pentagon, then the two most senior players in the Bush Administration propaganda project remaining at the Defense Department, Bryan Whitman and Roxie Merritt, would be poised to step up activities once again.

And they are not currently under the watchful eye of any direct superiors who’ve been brought in by the Obama Administration.

While Whitman said that the future of the program would be up to the next assistant secretary of defense, he also confirmed that that position, which is filled by political appointment, remains vacant.

No one, he added, has even been nominated yet.

Merritt is in a similar position of enhanced authority because the position above her has yet to be filled. Currently serving as President Obama’s director of the Pentagon office for community relations, she’s also its de facto chief until a new deputy assistant secretary of defense for internal communications is appointed.

What’s more, Merritt—whose email signature line was “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of All Who Threaten It” (p. 30 .pdf)—formerly worked as Whitman’s press office director at the time of the military analyst program’s increased activity in 2005.

Whitman and Merritt’s career civil servant status also continue to buffer them from scrutiny regarding political or ideological motivations, regardless of their activities in the Bush Administration.

Retired Air Force Colonel Sam Gardiner, an expert in military strategy and operations who has taught at the National War College, Air War College and Naval War College and has been critical of Bush Administration strategy, expressed disgust at the Bush holdovers who took part in propaganda against the American public, regardless of whether they were political or career appointees.

Commenting on Whitman’s presence in the Obama Administration, Gardiner said, “He should be so tainted with what the Bush Administration did that that in itself would be enough that he should be gone, even if he’s a career appointee.”

“The list of things that Pentagon public affairs participated in during the run-up [to the Iraq war] and immediately after the invasion are horrendous,” Gardiner continued.

But he pointed out that Whitman “serves as a career person as long as his performance is satisfactory to his immediate superiors.”

As to suggestions that Whitman be held accountable by a congressional investigative body for his part in the military analyst program, Gardiner noted, “Congress doesn’t evaluate individual performance of people. It evaluates the performance of organizations.”

Journalist and historian Norman Solomon said he found an “unfortunate logic” to Whitman remaining at the Pentagon.

Solomon, who recently visited Afghanistan on a fact-finding mission, told Raw Story, “A White House that sees fit to continue on with Robert Gates might see no problem with continuing on with Bryan Whitman.”

He added, “The empirical answer [to why he remains] would be that he’s still useful.”

Veteran foreign correspondent Reese Erlich, who is currently independently covering the Afghanistan war, believes that “to some extent, the Obama Administration is just simply replicating all the same mistakes of the Bush Administration—particularly the war in Afghanistan.”

“And if you’re going to do that,” he explained in an interview with Raw Story, “then you need propagandists who can make stuff up to make the war seem more popular in the short run.”

Brad Jacobson is a contributing investigative reporter to The Raw Story; additional research provided by Ron Brynaert

President Barack Obama signed into law a historic and contentious defense spending bill Wednesday that includes a broad expansion of hate-crimes legislation to include crimes committed against people because of their sexual orientation.

After passing out of the Senate 68-29 last week, the defense appropriations bill included hate-crimes language deemed too important for Obama to follow up on his threatened veto over concerns about military spending.

“I promised Judy Shepard when she saw me in the Oval Office that this day would come,” Obama told the crowd at the signing of the 2010 National Defense Authorization Act. Shepard’s son, Matthew was tortured and murdered in Laramie, Wyoming in 1998, because he was gay. According to the FBI, more than 77,000 hate-crime incidents were reported between 1998 and 2007.

Many conservatives worry the law will be used to criminalize speech. During recent floor debate, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) asked, “Can priests, pastors and rabbis be sure their preaching will not be prosecuted if it says certain things are right and wrong?”

Firebrand libertarian broadcaster Alex Jones urged opponents of the president to write letters this week promising to vote out Democrats if he signs “the freedom-destroying hate crimes bill.” However, Attorney General Eric Holder has said the law will only be used to prosecute acts of violence.

The new ‘hate crimes bill’ expands the 1969 United States federal hate-crime law to include crimes motivated by a victim’s actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability. It is the first law in the history of the federal government to extend legal protections to transgender persons, requiring the FBI to track statistics on hate crimes against them for the first time.

The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act also removes the current prerequisite that a victim be engaged in voting, going to school or other federally-protected activity. Federal authorities will be able to engage in hate crimes investigations that local authorities choose not to pursue, with extra funding for prosecution available to all.

At the signing, Obama also touched on the problem of billions of dollars in cost overruns for military projects, pointing out that funding for F-22 fighters was removed from 2010 defense spending. He had threatened to veto the spending bill during summer negotiations with Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Critics have warned the defense bill nevertheless contains $100B in unnecessary spending on other equipment, including F-35 jet engines. Obama today called for further “fundamental” reforms in how the government and Pentagon do business, according to CNN.

Thirty-year Government Accountability Office veteran Winslow T. Wheeler warned earlier this year not to trust talk of defense spending reform. “For decades, the media have taken their descriptions of the size of the defense budget straight from the Pentagon’s annual press release,” he wrote. “Its business as usual, pure and simple.”

This writeup was originally published on RawStory.com.

John Wall at practice last week.

TV news host Rachel Maddow invited sports writer Dave Zirin on her show to talk about the funding behind the basketball program. Read more about the political economy of sports by clicking each of these links. Wall’s eligibility is in question, as reported by AP. Meanwhile, donors want to fund a $7M dorm for student-athletes called the Wildcat Coal Lodge sponsored by coal interests. Read about it and watch the video at RawStory.com.

My Dad wrote back about the story:

Something is just weird about this story–black lung and basketball in the same floor plan. Not to mention minority stardom in basketball against the non-presence of minorities in the coal industry elite, mid-elite, high salaried labor, and all the way down the line. What do coal miners and college basketball players have in common? (knock/knock):   Exploitation.

Chronic case of denial

Pentagon used psyops on US public from Raw Story

Musicians demand info on their music used for torture

AT&T staff told to complain about net neutrality to FCC

Oops: Sequoia reveals e-voting code from Tech Dirt

Rep. Polis narrowly avoids net neutrality disaster

Broadband stimulus has failed to date from App Rising

Rachel Maddow challenges Liz Cheney: be on my show

New public media models examined from Media Shift

Infinite Dial calls Absolute Radio UK ‘most innovative in the world’

First public white spaces broadband network trial launch in Virginia: 1 2

FBI can continue to gag recipient of National Security Letter

Propaganda now on sale at AT&T store from Public Knowledge

AT&T boss asks employees to fake it from Save the Internet

Over 200,000 calls to Congress in favor of health reform in 1 day

Google partners with iLike and Lala for new music service

Pentagon instructs officials to cancel nonexistent ACORN contracts

Adam Carolla podcast credited for new radio content trend

Denver Westword hiring marijuana critic is national news!

Medical marijuana applicants in Colorado increasing

Hemp: Legalize it and I will industrialize it from Huff Po

Bush covered up global warming, hid info from Dems from Raw Story

Carbon emissions must peak by 2015 from Common Dreams

At UN, US votes against Gaza war crimes report endorsement

Code Pink delivers Afghani women’s petition to end war to Obama

VIDEO- Ron Paul at 10/15 Congressional hearing on Afghanistan

Ariana Huffington: Joe Biden should resign to oppose Afghan escalation

Afghan election fraud investigation trims Karzai’s votes from AFP

House Republicans call for Muslim investigations by Glenn Greenwald

Goldman Sachs to double their bonuses by Cindy Sheehan

Liz Cheney launches pro-war pro-torture group from Air America Radio

Judge closes Blackwater trial to public from Raw Story

The Israeli Brand from Adbusters

The press needs to change the way it covers Fox News by Eric Boehlert

Surprise: Perils of open government by Lawrence Lessig

Special interests see copyright treaty, we can’t from Wired

Gore Vidal: America is rotting away, Obama can’t save it

Interview with furious Gore Vidal from The Independent UK

VIDEO- Rachel Maddow confronts Tim Phillips

Finland: 1st to make broadband access legal right from Tech Crunch

Telecom industry should tell the truth about billing by Megan Tady

Joel Kelsey from Consumers Union on telecom billing from WA Post

New FCC blog on open Internet

Blue Bell Dems ask FCC to tone down net neutrality from Wall St Journal

Dems do telecom’s net neutrality bidding in letter to FCC by Megan Tady

Communications Workers oppose net neutrality by Art Brodsky

Al Franken on net neutrality from The Rag Blog

Should incumbents or independents do broadband mapping? by Drew Clark

Huge developments in AP vs. Shepard Fairey case from Editor & Publisher

Lt. Dan Choi said no to Don’t Ask Don’t Tell by Amy Goodman

Lt. Ehren Watada out of the miliary from Courage to Resist

Nobel Peace Prize: Hope, hopelessness and change by Josh Stearns

Mainstream media is propaganda from Naked Capitalism

CNN will not air anti-Lou Dobbs commercial from Huffington Post

Senate Judiciary: AM/FM must pay more for music from Future of Music Coalition

Seattle NPR affiliate raises $1M in eleven days from Blather Watch

VIDEO- Target Women: Beauty contraptions by Sarah Haskins

Checking Facebook or Twitter the new after-sex smoke? from Ars Technica

VIDEO- The entire financial crisis in 7 minutes from Huffington Post

Namapahh Radio on Columbus Day Congressional apology

VIDEO- Bill Frist right, Bill Maher wrong on vaccines? from The Contrarian

Old Van Jones interview from Hollywood Clout on Air America Radio

Columbus Day: The myth of ‘America’ by Dahr Jamail

A Columbus Day meditation by Thom Hartmann

Israel will not allow war crime trials over Gaza from AFP

Honduras: Coup troops raid TV station from Narco News

Surveillance footage of masked coup invaders from The Field

Argentina: New media laws ’settle old debt with democracy’ from Deep Dish

Free speech: Gagged from reporting on British parliament from The Guardian

Obama accused again of concealing Bush-era crimes from Truthout

Nobel Peace Prize: He won because he speaks of peace by Andrew Stelzer

White House vs. Fox News: NY Times & Raw Story & The Nation

Noam Chomsky’s books banned at Guantanamo

Acorn foresaw the foreclosure crisis in 2001

10 guidelines for funding citizen media from PBS Idea Lab

Broadband isn’t just the web, its our future from Giga Om

Public library technology access study from Benton

Broadband mapping: Connected Nation fuels controversy

Colleges want net neutrality to keep costs down from E School News

Round up: How will net neutrality impact investments from WA Post

Users of Sidekick phones lose data, Microsoft to blame? from Reuters

Why Dan Rather’s suit against CBS was dismissed from FindLaw

Will The Rachel Maddow show survive as liberals turn off TV?

News Corp reportedly interested in share of NBC Universal

New Arbitron ratings system under the microscope from FMQB

Arbitron’s flawed ratings hurt minority radio from The Hill

Mini newscasts for attention deficient viewers from Broadcasting & Cable

100% of LA’s medical marijuana dispensaries illegal? from Raw Story

Market research: Overestimation of Twitter effect on Bruno from LA Times

Webcasting helps conferences get more inclusive from PBS Media Shift

LPFM bill passes House subcommittee 15 to 1 from Prometheus Radio

Boise Community Radio federal grant match fundraising begins

KYRS Spokane going full-power with federal grant

Browser is new iPod, mobile app is new CD from Media Futurist

US military fights Taliban on the airwaves from Raw Story

KZUM’s quirky charm worth saving

The new crisis at Pacifica Radio from Counterpunch

KPFA: Community radio at the crossroads

Avoiding a Faustian bargain at KPFA from Indybay

Fisher expands hyperlocal blogs in Seattle & Portland

Clear Channel charges to backsell playlists? by Nancy Sinatra

The Stranger doubts KEXP’s John Richards’ mental health

KEXP layoffs hit NYC operations crew

2005: John Richards discussed his controversial salary

Dems who voted against public option got $19m from healthcare firms

Banning a book near you from Truthout

End of FCC censorship of the airwaves may come by Marjorie Heins

Inside look at how Goldman Sachs lobbies Senate by Matt Taibbi

Kirk Cameron combats Darwin in Bananaland by Jim Emerson

Read any banned books? Probably several from True/Slant

Bill introduced: Eliminate retroactive immunity for telecoms

Russian journalist in hiding after Soviet critique from Reuters

Glenn Beck satire site fights back from Ad Week

FCC will review media ownership rules in November

Dems to shield big banks from tougher state laws? from Raw Story

Princeton students, faculty not thrilled with Kindle

I get frustrated reading interesting news stories and then doing nothing with them. So partly to clean up my browsers full of tabs and mainly to try and encourage my friends (and strangers, too, I guess) to read more stories that matter I’m going to start blogging notes about the news I’m reading. These will be mostly just lists of stories with links for now. Let me know what you think, and please post stories you’re reading in the comment section.

We’re Screwed: The Yes Men Strike Again from Common Dreams

Why Is Obama Still Using Blackwater? by Jeremy Scahill, Rebel Reports

Dem. Senators’ New Bill Could Eliminate Telecom Immunity from Raw Story

Campaign Finance 527 Rules Overturned from US PIRG

Did Bush Secretly Operate Total Info Awareness? by Jason Leopold, Truthout

Revamped Journalism Classes Attract Students from Chronicle of Higher Ed

Hillary, the Movie: Supremes May Loosen Laws on Corporate Speech from Huff Po

Message from Van Jones from Grist

KCRW Doesn’t Like New PPM Ratings System from LA Times

Boulder Pirates Try to Beat the System from Daily Camera

Consumers Union & Consumer Federation Support FCC Support for Net Neutrality

Google Releases News-Reading Service from NY Times

Is Personal Email Subject to Open Records Law? from eSchool News

James Murdoch, BBC & the Myth of Impartiality from Media Lens

Medicare Part E by Thom Hartmann

Glenn Beck attacks Mark Lloyd from Reclaim the Media

One Web Day from Common Dreams