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The Day After May 21st Okay everybody still here? See Dana Milbank's LAST CHAT at WaPo Dana Milbank's final chat...maybe: End of the world, Aaron Schock's revealing photos and more for some comic relief to start your rapture-free Sunday. So for the superstitious, what about Friday the 13th? Barry Ritholtz explains how Jezebels Undermining Financial Overhaul The ongoing attempt to turn the nation over wholesale to our corporate overlords continues apace. Leading the charge are the Republican harlots, who seem to have never met a corporate phallus they could not find new and clever ways to debase themselves to. Aiding their charge are Democrat trollops, who have tried to out-GOP the GOP as fellatrix in search of campaign contributions. Ever since the Clinton-era embracing of Wall Street, representative democracy, at least as far as flesh and blood humans are concerned, has suffered greatly. We are a one party nation, morphed into a Corporatocracy, with laws and regulations written by the Corporate campaign donor, for the benefit of the Corporate donor. You humans are merely cannon fodder, who exist mostly to buy corporate products and pay taxes. The national government has become a giant grift, populated by Jezebels and strumpets. We have a holodeck version of reality, a smash and grab financial policy, an endless stream of corporate giveaways, tax loopholes and bailouts. That the sheeple tolerate does not mean they are dumb or foolish, but it does speak to the eradication of Democracy. The complete institutionalization of this process has created some angst, but an embedded policy of Bread & Circuses usually serves to distract the masses. We can throw the bums out every two years, but it matters little. A new set of bums merely push the buttons and pull the levers of the machinery — but it is the machine itself that has become so corrupted. To quote P. J. O’Rourke “Voting just encourages the Bastards.” Today, we learn of more Republicans blocking appointments to all manner of regulatory oversight offices. Because, you know, bankers can self-regulate. And Democrats lack the balls to ram through someone like Paul Volcker to oversee the 5 years-olds we call bankers. They would not want to offend the overlords. Rule 1 in modern politics: Never upset the donors. The threat to our once great republic is not our deficit or our extended military or terrorism or China — it is our phlegmatic, wheezy, impotent leadership (and I use that last word lightly). The lack of vision, the inability to recognize reality, the selling out to the highest bidder in Washington DC — THAT is our biggest worry. Any of the aforementioned problems could be handled if only the political classes had not sold their collective souls for a handful of shiny beads. When it comes to financial regulations, our choices are the Party of Make Believe versus the Party of Castrati. It’s Friday the 13th every day in America. Thanks Barry (h/t MADDY) who adds, "We need to take a lesson from the Scottish National Party" finding Steve Hynd at newshoggers A win in Scotland, a Republican debate, and Pakistan For those of you who don't yet listen, I thought maybe I should summarize last night's Polizeros Radio. It was one of our widest ranging discussions yet, with a lot packed into 60 minutes. Our host Josh Mull dived straight in with the Scottish National Party's landmark win in the elections there and its possible impact. As my co-panellist Bob Morris puts it:

The SNP describes itself as center-left, which by US standards would be considered far left. They favor no fees at universities and have already instituted free prescriptions for drugs. Scotland has huge mostly untapped wind, wave, and tidal power and could easily support itself should it vote for independence, something the SNP plans on bringing to referendum within five years. The SNP, who have been around for decades, won because they a) never gave up, b) clearly stand for something. This is how to win in America too.

The SNP's members, as lefties, could have decided to be a part of the larger UK Labour Party but didn't because they had that one agenda item - greater representation and eventual independence for Scotland - that Labour was never going to have. Over the years, and especially under Blair, the Labour Party moved towards the center and that left the SNP's members with a realization: they were now the only party advocating the rest of their democratic socialist agenda too. The lesson for American lefties should be obvious. Why vote for a party that will only ever enact a small portion of your agenda? You deserve to have a party to vote for that will represent you 100%. If that party doesn't exist, form it and build it, even if it takes decades. At Slate Shadi Hamid outlines "What Obama needs to convey in this week's Middle East speech" in Say Sorry, Mr. President Facing a Middle East in turmoil, President Obama will have a chance to regain the initiative and articulate his vision for the region on Thursday, when he is scheduled to give a major address. This time, platitudes about America's commitment to democracy will not do, because they ring hollow to Arab audiences. No one really questions that Washington believes in democracy and universal human rights—in theory. What they doubt is the ability and willingness to translate such abstractions into real policy changes on the ground. Any major speech should address this dilemma head on. ... Instead of saying things that most Arabs view as inaccurate descriptions of reality (such as "wherever people long to be free, they will find a friend in the United States"), he should speak frankly and explain that sometimes competing interests guide American policy, including in ways that contradict our ideals. This is inevitable, as even foreign-policy idealists will admit. At the same time, the president should lay out his vision of how ideals and interests now converge. If democracy is the eventual endpoint of all Arab regimes, it is obviously in America's interest to be on the right side of that change. Aligning with regimes at the expense of publics will be damaging wherever regimes fall, as some surely will. So President Not Sure gave his speech at the State Department (see WaPo White House invites Arab bloggers to Obama’s Middle East speech) and Shadi Hamid then wrote at CNN Where was passion, purpose, plan? The speech was supposed to offer a corrective to criticisms that Obama lacks vision on the Middle East. Instead, it promised more of the same -- a largely ad-hoc policy that reacts to events, rather than trying to shape them. Obama had an opportunity to reframe the debate over America's role in a troubled region. That opportunity was squandered. To be sure, Obama affirmed that it is U.S. policy to support reform across the region. He spoke of the importance of Egypt's transition to democracy. But where was the road map for getting there? How does the U.S. plan to stop Syria's brutal crackdown, which has claimed many hundreds of lives? Crucially, Obama offered pointed criticisms of growing repression in Bahrain, host of the Navy's Fifth Fleet. But, again, there were no new policy prescriptions....Obama even failed to so much as acknowledge America's past mistakes. President Bush did precisely that in November 2003, when he said: "Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe." ...The passion and purpose -- the sense of seizing a historic moment that may not come again -- have been lacking. In place of bold gestures, we have a president who has insisted on care and deliberation. There is, to be sure, a time for caution. Today's speech was not one of those times. MARK MAZZETTI and EMILY B. HAGER of the New York Times investigate a Secret Desert Force Set Up by Blackwater’s Founder Mr. [Erik] Prince, who resettled here last year after his security business faced mounting legal problems in the United States, was hired by the crown prince of Abu Dhabi to put together an 800-member battalion of foreign troops for the U.A.E., according to former employees on the project, American officials and corporate documents obtained by The New York Times. The force is intended to conduct special operations missions inside and outside the country, defend oil pipelines and skyscrapers from terrorist attacks and put down internal revolts, the documents show. Such troops could be deployed if the Emirates faced unrest in their crowded labor camps or were challenged by pro-democracy protests like those sweeping the Arab world this year. ... In outsourcing critical parts of their defense to mercenaries — the soldiers of choice for medieval kings, Italian Renaissance dukes and African dictators — the Emiratis have begun a new era in the boom in wartime contracting that began after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. And by relying on a force largely created by Americans, they have introduced a volatile element in an already combustible region where the United States is widely viewed with suspicion. The United Arab Emirates — an autocracy with the sheen of a progressive, modern state — are closely allied with the United States, and American officials indicated that the battalion program had some support in Washington. ...Still, it is not clear whether the project has the United States’ official blessing. Legal experts and government officials said some of those involved with the battalion might be breaking federal laws that prohibit American citizens from training foreign troops if they did not secure a license from the State Department. Just what the Middle East needs now, an influx of American right-wing evangelical XTAIN Warriors with guns and helicopters, eh? Isn't this a U.A.E. State-sponsored evangelical terrorist organization? See JEREMY SCAHILL on DN! below for more grim details. Now compare and contrast these two articles describing protesters being fired on by Israeli soldiers: First read Pepe Escobar at AsiaTimes.com Sunday, bloody Sunday It was a Sunday, bloody Sunday - with no uplifting U2 anthem to "celebrate" it. In Palestine, Syria and Lebanon, tens of thousands of Palestinians marched to the borders with Israel to mark the anniversary of the [May 14] 1948 Nakba - the displacement that accompanied the creation of Israel. The Israeli response, with "maximum restraint": killing 10 people in Lebanon, eight in Syria, two in Gaza and one in the West. And Nathan Bronner at NYT Israeli Troops Fire as Marchers Breach Borders Israel’s borders erupted in deadly clashes on Sunday as thousands of Palestinians — marching from Syria, Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank — confronted Israeli troops to mark the anniversary of Israel’s creation. More than a dozen people were reported killed and scores injured. With an unprecedented wave of coordinated protests, the popular uprisings that have swept the region touched Israel directly for the first time. Like those other protests, plans for this one spread over social media, including Facebook, but there were also signs of official support in Lebanon and Syria, where analysts said leaders were using the Palestinian cause to deflect attention from internal problems. Read both side-by-side for full effect (h/t malloy). Next we go to International Intrigue Desk with THE DSK FILES. First Steve Cleamons at TheWashingtonNote.com explains The Meaning of Strauss-Kahn But Strauss-Kahn was never a manic neoliberal nor what financier George Soros derisively calls a "market fundamentalist." ... Strauss-Kahn has long been the living embodiment of an ideological hybrid between Milton Friedman and Joseph Stiglitz, two antagonists profiled in journalist Michael Hirsh's Capital Offense: How Washington's Wise Men Turned America's Future Over to Wall Street. And this is what the highly regulated world of French socialist-capitalism needed, and also what the world needed and got when Strauss-Kahn became Executive Director of the International Monetary Fund. ... Strauss-Kahn, even when we discussed his views of the global economy in 1998, was a storm of contradictions that nonetheless made sense. He could see deeper global economic dependencies growing and simultaneously increasing the speed and scale of financial transactions but in contrast to the US ruling triumvirate of Robert Rubin, Lawrence Summers and Alan Greenspan, Strauss-Kahn believed in healthy and robust regulation and monitoring. Strauss-Kahn has always been concerned about the human and national victims of an amoral global economic order. ... Strauss-Kahn's latest IMF patient has been Greece, helping it to work through its debt nightmares. Virtually everyone gives the IMF Director high marks for his ability to keep in mind human faces when sorting through and dealing with the tough disciplines wrought by globalization. I know nothing of Strauss-Kahn's rumored aggressiveness towards women and think that President Nicolas Sarkozy is right that he should be presumed innocent until the charges against him for sexual battery are sorted out. Nouriel Roubini has publicly speculated that it can't be discounted that this may be some sort of a set up. I won't speculate one way or another as I think at the time of this writing, none of us know the truth of what did or didn't happen. What is clear is that Strauss-Kahn who is one of the few major economic gladiators in the world to defend the rights and privileges of people is human himself. We sometimes forget that. Greg Palast begs to differ and tells about how Strauss-Kahn Screws Africa Now that I've dispensed with the obvious and obnoxious teaser headline, let's drop the towel and expose Dominique Strauss-Kahn's history of arrogant abuse. The truth is, the grandee of the IMF has molested Africans for years. ... Since taking over the IMF in 2007, erstwhile "Socialist" Strauss-Kahn has tightened the screws in an attempt to maintain the free-market finance mania that ruined this planet in the first place. [That's worth a story in itself – and that's coming. Our team has a stack of inside documents from the IMF that we will be releasing in my new book in the Fall.] It was DSK who, last year, personally insisted on brutal terms for the so-called bail-out of Greece. "Strong conditionality" is the IMF term. Strauss-Kahn demanded not just a devastating cut in pensions and a deliberate increase in unemployment to 14%, but also the sell-off of 4,000 of 6,000 state-owned services. The DSK IMF plan allowed the financiers who set the financial fires of Greece to pick up the nation's assets at a fire-sale price. The Strauss-Kahn demands were not "tough love" for Greece: The love was reserved solely for the vulture bankers who received the IMF funds but were not required to accept one euro in lost profit in return. DSK, despite the advice of many, refused to ask the banks and speculators to reduce their usurious interest charges that were the root of Greece's woes. Juan Cole at his website Informed Comment Why was Strauss-Kahn Arrested but W. & Cheney went Free? What is it about the United States that makes for harsh prosecutions over sex crimes but lets leaders off the hook when it comes to war crimes? New York police rushed to arrest Dominique Strauss-Kahn , the head of the international Monetary Fund, on Saturday on learning of charges against him by a hotel maid of sexual assault. This quick action against a wealthy and powerful individual, seeking justice for a person at the bottom rung of the American social hierarchy, is praiseworthy. It affirms the principle that no one is above the law. But the widows and orphans of Iraq cannot hope that the New York police would similarly frog-march George W. Bush off his first-class flight and arrest him for crimes against humanity. Glenn Greenwald argues that the lessons of the Nuremberg trials have been forgotten and that Bush and other members of his administration should be tried for war crimes. His piece builds on earlier journalism on this subject, such as that of Jan Frel. Not only should Bush and his cronies be tried for launching an aggressive war, but many jurists want them tried for crimes against humanity such as torture, in which they have admitted engaging. ... I agree entirely with Greenwald that it is dangerous to let members of the Bush administration off the hook for their war crimes (which go beyond the initial transgression of launching a war of aggression with no UNSC sanction). There is no difference in principle between what Bush and Cheney did and what Slobodan Milosevic did, except that we live in a hypocritical world of victor’s justice. To shield the rich and powerful makes a mockery of Chapter 7. But I would argue that it is precisely the contrast between an action like the UNSC-sanctioned intervention in Libya and Bush-Cheney’s cowboy invasion and occupation of Iraq that helps underline how criminal the latter enterprise was. Mike Whitney tells us at IMF chief Strauss-Kahn caught in "Honey Trap" I have no way of knowing whether the 32-year-old maid who claims she was attacked and forced to perform oral sex on IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, is telling the truth or not. I'll leave that to the braying hounds in the media who have already assumed the role of judge, jury and Lord High Executioner. But I will say, the whole matter smells rather fishy, just like the Eliot Spitzer story smelled fishy. Spitzer, you may recall, was Wall Street's biggest adversary and a likely candidate to head the SEC, a position at which he would have excelled. In fact, there's no doubt in my mind that if Spitzer had been appointed to lead the SEC, most of the top investment bankers on Wall Street would presently be making license plates and rope-soled shoes at the federal penitentiary. So, there was plenty of reason to shadow Spitzer's every move and see what bit of dirt could be dug up on him. As it turns out, the ex-Governor of New York made it easy for his enemies by engaging a high-priced hooker named Ashley Dupre for sex at the Mayflower Hotel. When the news broke, the media descended on Spitzer like a swarm of locusts poring over every salacious detail with the ebullient fervor of a randy 6th-grader. Meanwhile, the crooks on Wall Street were able to breathe a sigh of relief and get back to doing what they do best; fleecing investors and cheating people out of the life savings. Strauss-Kahn had enemies in high places, too, which is why this whole matter stinks to high-Heaven. First of all, Strauss-Kahn was the likely candidate of the French Socialist Party who would have faced Sarkozy in the upcoming presidential elections. The IMF chief clearly had a leg-up on Sarkozy who has been battered by a number of personal scandals and plunging approval ratings. But if Strauss-Kahn was set up, then it was probably by members of the western bank coalition, that shadowy group of self-serving swine whose policies have kept the greater body of humanity in varying state of poverty and desperation for the last two centuries. Strauss-Kahn had recently broke-free from the "party line" and was changing the direction of the IMF. His road to Damascus conversion was championed by progressive economist Joesph Stiglitz in a recent article titled "The IMF's Switch in Time". Here's an excerpt: Go read the sordid rest. DAI-ICHI UPDATE: Our own intrepid msgeaux tells us "Good thing we have the sexcapades to divert attention from 3 meltdowns at Fuku clusterf**k in Japan." Tepco Misleading Public Over Nuclear Crisis by Tsuyoshi Inajima and Yuji Okada: Tokyo Electric Power Co. has made misleading statements about when it will stabilize its nuclear reactors crippled by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, said Tetsuo Ito, head of the Atomic Energy Research Institute at Kinki University in western Japan. The company, known as Tepco, yesterday reiterated the schedule on its so-called road map announced a month ago to achieve cold shutdown of the three radiation-leaking reactors as early as October. Setting a timetable without knowing the condition of the reactor cores doesn’t make sense, Ito said in a phone interview from Osaka. “Only after understanding what’s going on inside the buildings and reactors, will it be clear what parts of the timetable are achievable,” Ito said. “Devising a road map without that will give the public a false sense of security.” On May 15, or more than two months after the disaster at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant, Tepco said conditions were worse than expected in reactor No. 1 when it found all uranium fuel rods had melted. Today it sent four workers into reactor No. 2 for the first time since March 14 to measure radiation levels and assess whether work can be done to fix gauges that will show the condition of the core. “It’s highly likely No. 2 and No. 3 reactors are worse than thought,” Ito said. “Tepco devised the first (road map) before fully grasping the situation inside the reactor buildings; a scientist wouldn’t do such a thing.” Ito has headed the institute, which started running Japan’s first university-based nuclear reactor in 1961, for more than five years. He has spent 35 years in nuclear engineering research.... Since the accident, Tepco shares have lost 82 percent of their value. They traded at 392 yen at 2:32 p.m. in Tokyo today compared with 2,153 yen on March 10. Our Lightworker correspondent jen snags Eric Boehlert @ Media Matters Irony Is Dead: Fox Warns About Foreign-Born Billionaire Spending Millions To "Influence" American Media Earlier this week, writing at Foxnews.com, the Media Research Center's Dan Gainor published a very ominous look at the media world of George Soros, and how the progressive billionaire was trying to "influence" the American press by funding various journalism institutions, such as ProPublica and the Columbia School of Journalism. The piece contained some sizable holes, however.... So what's the big deal? We're still not sure. Nonetheless, Gainor has returned with another riveting installment, and now the bogeyman exercise is becoming comical. It's almost funny reading Gainor's latest because there's no point to the endeavor, other than' "OMG, George Soros donates lots of money to journalism institutions!" Right, but that's no secret, so what's the conflict? Because once again Gainor can't point to anything wrong with the journalism in question. Gainor can't find any examples, or even allegations, of Soros trying to influence reports. Nor does Gainor suggest Soros' financial support in any way has an impact on the stories produced. So no, Gainor can't point to anything questionable about the journalism that Soros has helped fund. I suppose readers are supposed to be shocked and horrified by the amount of money Soros has reportedly spent in recent years helping out journalism institutions: $48 million! But honestly, I feel like Dr. Evil should read that number out loud to give it its proper due. And I'm sorry but somebody writing for Fox News, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch, pretending that a billionaire spending $48 million over eight years is a big deal and cause for concern? Gimme a break. Murdoch loses $48 million (let alone spends that amount) on the New York Post every year between January and September. The daily lost $70 million in 2009, which means in the eight years Soros has spent $45 million buying media "influence," Murdoch has lost perhaps $600 million on the New York Post alone. (Not gonna see THAT FACT on Fake sNooz TeeVee, are ya? -Ed.) But yes, readers should be deeply, deeply concerned about all the influence Soros is trying to buy up by spending a fraction of what Murdoch does on American media. HAHA! Maybe Soros could drop a cool MILLION on BTV? AND jen also snags emptywheel @ FiredogLake.com Jared Bernstein Opens a Twitter Account, and a Cabinet of Quashed Ideas You see, Joe Biden’s economic advisor, Jared Bernstein, was recently liberated from the White House. And, as part of that liberation process, it seems, he got himself a blog and twitter feed. His inaugural post explained he could do more and better on the outside, speaking truth. .... And he’s got all the smarts of Paul Krugman with–excuse me, the Shrill One–better voice. But what’s more fascinating to me is the way his blog reads like the exploding diarrhea of common sense ideas that were quashed within the Obama White House: Go read at FDL for full exposure! Only emptywheel can get away with "exploding diarrhea" and "common sense ideas" in the same sentence! Check out MAX KEISER with PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS and COEHM JOHN PERKINS, SAM SEDER with MATT TAIBBI and DIGBY, PETER B has and EXCLOO with JASON LEOPOLD who is also on AntiWarRadio and so much more real information below! Take yer Brick Aim at PAUL "MEDICARE VOUCHER" RYAN on Meet the David and NEWT "CONTRACT ON AMERICA" GINGRINCH on Face the Bob. Then it's KING ABDULLA and GEORGE MITCHELL on This Anampout while State of Candy gets Dem Whip DICK DURBIN and DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER (we're not making that name up!) and Fake News gets a fake GOP prez candidate HERMAN CAIN and Head Troglodyte MITCH MCCONNELL. As far as we can tell all the Brick TeeVee Crew did not get raptured and were busy enjoying the Tribe's 10-run-innning 19-1 blowout against the Royals on Monday and put Vin Mazzaro in the record book as pitching the worst game in Royals history giving up 14 runs on 11 hits in 2 1/3 innings. Ouch! The 1st-place Tribe lost two to the ChiSox to finish the road trip 2-2 then started Inter-League play against state rival Cincy Reds with two wins! The rains finally let up so the Crew were busy mowing, painting, trimming and other non-recreational outdoor activities. Garden Prep is their mission for Sunday plus a breakout inaugural fund-raiser from long-time BTV friend Anthony Fossececa running for OH House District 17! Send yer sofa change to Call Me Foss! Someone's got to take a stand against Herr Kasich and Anthony is just the guy to do it! Here's good summary of A Brief History of the Battle for Wisconsin which is similar to what Herr Kasich is trying in Ohio so let's get Anthony elected! The BTV Crew is also actively gathering sigs for the state-wide ballot initiative to repeal S.B. 5. Contact WE ARE OHIO or any union local to sign up! As Hunter S. Thompson proclaimed, "When the going gets tough, the weird turn pro." Have a gonzo week!

BRICK TEEVEE ALERTS!_©

JAPAN IN CRISIS JAPAN IN CRISIS Democracy Now! reports on the disaster in Japan following a massive 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami and the resulting nuclear crisis.
»»» Judy Ancel, director of the Institute for Labor Studies, University of Missouri-Kansas City @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW "Getting Wise to Breitbart’s Lies": Missouri Professors Survive Right-Wing Smear Campaign by Andrew Breitbart Watch Pt. 2 of the interview HERE. May 17, 2011
»»» Fadi Quran, youth leader in Ramallah @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW A New Nonviolent Resistance Movement Grows as Palestinians Mark Nakba Day with Protests at Syria, Lebanon and Gaza Borders May 17, 2011
»»» Jeremy Scahill @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW Jeremy Scahill on Blackwater Founder Erik Prince’s Private Army of “Christian Crusaders” in the UAE May 18, 2011
»»» Shahien Nasiripour, senior business reporter for the Huffington Post @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW Will the Justice Department Prosecute Bank of America, JPMorgan, Wells Fargo for Mortgage Fraud? May 18, 2011
»»» Zaheer Ali @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW "Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention": Manning Marable’s Exhaustive Biography of the Civil Rights Leader RELATED: Manning Marable’s Controversial New Biography Refuels Debate on Life and Legacy of Malcolm X with acclaimed poet, playwright, music historian and activist Amiri Baraka, Harlem-based activist, teacher, author and journalist Herb Boyd and University Professor of Sociology at Georgetown University Michael Eric Dyson. May 19, 2011
»»» Democracy Now! Roundtable @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW Did Obama’s Mideast Speech Signal U.S. Shift on Israel-Palestine? Democracy Now! Roundtable with author Norman Finkelstein, Palestinian human rights attorney Noura Erakat and president of J Street Jeremy Ben-Ami. May 20, 2011
»»» Retired Irish soldier and peacekeeper Col. Desmond Travers @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW U.N. Gaza Inquiry Panelist Desmond Travers Challenges Goldstone’s Recantation of Key Finding May 20, 2011

»»» GRITtv @ www.grittv.org with Laura Flanders
»»» BIG NEWS @ GRITtv GRITtv is becoming The Laura Flanders Show! As you know, we have been pursuing national syndication. We are now pleased to announce that starting later this summer, The Laura Flanders Show will appear on public TV stations across the country -- including in major markets in San Francisco, Denver, Philadelphia and Washington, DC, distributed by EPS, Executive Program Services Inc. (more...) And read more at The F Word @ GRITtv from May 13th, 2011 The F Word: Goodbye For Now from GRITtv
BRICK TEEVEE SPORT!_©
»»» Indianapolis 500 All the anguish, anxiety, and drama of who will and who won't make the field for the 100th Anniversary Indianapolis 500 will be determined on Sunday, May 22nd at Bump Day on Versus beginning NOON et
»»» MLB on TBS Subway Series concludes Met @ Yankees 1 pm et
»»» Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN Cubs @ Red Sox 8 pm et
»»» Monday Night Baseball on ESPN Red Sox @ Indians! 7 pm et
»»» NBA PLAYOFFS Eastern Conference Finals Game 3 tied at 1-1 Bulls @ Heat 8:30 pm et on TNT. More playoff games all week with TNT broadcasting the Eastern Conference and ESPN with the Western Conference Mavs-Thunder matchup. Check yer local listings!
BRICK TEEVEE ACTION!_©
CAMPAIGN FOR AMERICA'S FUTURE American Majority Rejects Washington Austerity Consensus – And We Demand Media Coverage by Roger Hickey, President, Campaign for America's Future: No more silent majority. Today the Campaign for America’s Future is sending letters to all the major media demanding that the views of the American Majority be represented in the news programs, print articles and opinion pages, and in the non-stop daily and Sunday talk shows in which the debate about America’s future is being conducted as we move toward the showdown over the budget. We are demanding representation in the media proportional to the size of the American Majority. And we are making the point that the views of the majority are not irrational—and that in a democracy the majority deserves to be heard, not patronized. We are also supplying the media with an extensive list of economists, experts and advocates who share the majority view that deficits are not now the major threat to U.S. prosperity, and that getting revenue back into the budget is far less damaging (and more just) than cutting spending and crippling important programs for the poor and the elderly. And we are telling them that occasionally featuring the great Paul Krugman, as though his views represent a lonely majority, is not enough. ... The Campaign for America’s Future is joining with the Center for Economic and Policy Research (whose Co-Director, Dean Baker blogs regularly about economic bias in the media) and with FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) to monitor the media’s coverage and representation of the American Majority views as they go into covering the big deficit fight. But we want to enlist YOU too. Send us accounts of unbalanced coverage in the national media and in your local newspapers and television. Call up reporters, editors, assignment people and tell them when they are under-representing the views of the American Majority. We should have at least half the experts, pundits, quotes and real people represented in their coverage. In a debate as important as the one we are going into, we can’t allow the media to ignore the American Majority. Much more at www.ourfuture.org
MOVE TO AMEND! www.movetoamend.org SIGN HERE NOW! Also visit Rep Alan Grayson's site www.savedemocracy.net
SUPPORT THE TROOPS WHO REFUSE TO FIGHT See CourageToResist.org UPDATE! A Typical Day For PFC Bradley Manning at Fort Leavenworth 1 PFC Manning was transferred to the Joint Regional Corrections Facility (JRCF) at Fort Leavenworth on April 20, 2011. I was able to tour the facility and meet with PFC Manning last week. PFC Manning is now being held in Medium Custody. He is no longer under Prevention of Injury watch and is no longer subjected to harsh pretrial confinement conditions. Unlike at Quantico, PFC Manning cell has a large window that provides adequate natural light. His cell also has a desk, a bed, and a toilet. The cell is approximately 80 square feet. He is provided with a normal mattress, sheets and a pillow. None of his clothing is taken away from him at night. PFC Manning is able to have all of his personal items in his cell, which include his clothing, his legal materials, books and letters from family and friends. He is also able to have a pen and paper at all times in his cell, and is able to write whenever he chooses. ...... Correspondence can be sent to PFC Manning at the following address: Bradley Manning 89289, JRCF, 830 Sabalu Road, Fort Leavenworth, KS 66027-2315 More at link.
EMAIL UPDATE! Help us reach our goal of a half million by signing the petition, and passing it on. Add your name! AND Vote for Bradley in the 2011 Time Magazine 100 Poll here!
Add your name to this petition Eminent US legal scholars protest 'torture' of Bradley Manning.
DONATE YOUR OLD CELL PHONES TO T.J. MARTELL FOUNDATION Help save lives. Donate your old & used iPhone, Blackeberries, Droid and other phonesto help the T.J. Martell Foundations fund life-saving cancer & AIDS research. The T.J. Martell Foundation is the music industry's largest foundation funding cutting edge medical research focused on finding cures for leukemia, cancer and AIDS. The Foundation sources and supports early-stage research projects aimed at developing more effective treatments for patients which otherwise might not be funded. For more information, go to www.tjmartellfoundation.org

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The Obameter: Tracking Obama's Campaign Promises
Considering Democracy: 8 Things to ask your Representative

• This Week (ABC) with Christiane Amanpour
  • Fact Checking ABC's "This Week" at NPR "On the Media" - Jake Tapper, interim host of ABC's "This Week," liked the idea of fact-checking his guests' comments, so he set up a partnership with Politifact, a non-partisan fact-checking organization. See Politifact Statements ABC News 'This Week'
  • Former Special Envoy for Middle East Peace George Mitchell
  • King Abdullah II of Jordan
  • ROUNDTABLE: George Will, political strategist Matthew Dowd, Democratic strategist Donna Brazile and ABC News Senior Political Correspondent Jonathan Karl
  • ROUNDTABLE II: Political Correspondent Jonathan Karl author of "Le Seduction" Elaine Sciolino, Michelle Cottle of "The Daily Beast" and "Newsweek," and ABC's Cokie Roberts and her husband, journalist Steve Roberts.
  • ROUNDTABLE III: former Middle East negotiator Aaron David Miller and ABC's Senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper

• Face The Nation (CBS) Host Bob Schiefer Topic: Boehner throws down the debt limit gauntlet
  • Former House Speaker and GOP Presidential Candidate Newt Gingrich

• 60 Minutes (CBS)
  • The FBI and The Grim Reaper (7 p.m. ET/PT) - A former FBI agent says he considered his star Mafia informant - a hit man nicknamed "The Grim Reaper" - a friend and did not investigate when this informant let him know he had killed a rival mobster. CNN's Anderson Cooper reports. Andy Court is the producer.
  • U.S. v. Drake (8 p.m. ET/PT) - Tom Drake, a former National Security Agency senior executive indicted last year for espionage after leaking to the media allegations that the nation's largest intelligence organization had committed fraud, waste and abuse will appear in his first television interview. Scott Pelley reports. Glenn Silber and Graham Messick are the producers.
  • Children in the Fields (8 p.m. ET/PT) - In agriculture, children as young as 12 are allowed to work unlimited hours outside of school. Byron Pitts reports on the "Migrant Stream" and the families who are part of it whose children work alongside them in the fields for minimum wage. David Schneider is the producer.
  • Al Sharpton (8 p.m. ET/PT) - The former street activist has tempered his style, become friends of the president and broadened his civil rights activism to include causes like immigration and same-sex marriage. Lesley Stahl reports. Ira Rosen is the producer.

• Meet the Press (NBC) Host David Gregory
  • Meet the Facts at NPR "On the Media" - Last December, NYU professor Jay Rosen proposed something simple yet revolutionary: why don't the Sunday morning chat shows fact check their guests? After "Meet the Press" host David Gregory declined, two college students launched a website to do it for him. One of them, Chas Danner, explains what they're trying to accomplish. See their website MeetTheFacts.com updating soon!
  • House Budget Chair Paul Ryan (R-WI)
  • ROUNDTABLE: Rep. Chris Van Hollen, Ranking Member of the House Budget Committee, Mike Murphy, NBC's Andrea Mitchell, WaPo's Eugene Robinson, and NYT's Andrew Ross Sorkin.

• State of the Union With Candy Crowley (CNN)
  At 9 AM ET, Candy talks to the power players: politicians, business leaders and international newsmakers who will make Monday morning's headlines. At NOON ET, Candy wraps it all up with fresh interviews and the best of the earlier hours.
  • Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin
  • two members of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, Reps. Mike Rogers and Dutch Ruppersberger.
  • Former Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey
  • former Biden chief of staff Ron Klain
  • Israeli Ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren.

• HEAD ON RADIO with Bob Kincaid
  
  Headon Radio with Bob Kincaid 6 PM Eastern, 3 PM Pacific, 2300 GMT. Duration: 3 hrs. To be part of the conversation on Head-on Radio, call toll-free (877) 443-2366, or use our Liberal community line at 304-658-3333. Email: bob [at] headonradio [dot] com.
  • PRAYER MEETIN' WEDNESDAY!!!!!! Uber Pope Bob lets the Religious Right have it! Listen HERE (mp3)!
  Amen to the White Rose Society! Donate to Head On HERE!

• YOUR GREEN NEWS REPORT
  
  The Green News Report with Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen: 6 minutes of green news, politics, analysis & snarky comment!
  Go see greennews.bradblog.com!
  • 'Green News Report' - May 19, 2011 IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Big Oil's big subsidies survive the Senate; Federal investigators find "deviant practices" by Massey Energy; Faulty equipment at Japanese nuke plant also installed at US nuke plants; PLUS: It's the End of the World as we know it! So drive safely! ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!
  IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see link): NOAA scientists see 'unprecedented' ocean changes; US weather disasters are the 'new normal'; Are environmental regulations really 'job killers'?; 100% solar plane makes another successful flight; Hauling icebergs to deserts; CA hybrid owners to lose carpool lane privileges; Exposing babies to carcinogenic flame-retardants; Big fines for PA 'fracking' violations; Deforestation in Brazil escalates; Where has MT's water gone?; TX drinking water shows radioactive contamination; MS River flood making Gulf Dead Zone much worse; Bringing solar to the masses at Lowe's; Climate denier's retracted report exposes workings of the Denial Industry; Climate change deniers now like birthers ... PLUS: Is climate sanity the kiss of death for Republican presidential candidates? ...... Links to STORIES DISCUSSED IN TODAY'S 'GREEN NEWS REPORT' at Green News Report! Visit BradBlog.com to see who counts yer votes! Reference yer background/research at Who's Counting? too.
  UPDATE! Kentucky election officials get 156 years for rigging e-voting machines, buying/selling votes It is now officially impossible to know whether thousands of paper ballots being counted in the state of Wisconsin’s Supreme Court election “recount” are the same ones actually cast on Election Day. It didn’t have to be that way, unlike in Kentucky, where the voters never had a chance, and where high-ranking election officials have now been sentenced to more than 150 years in federal jail following “decades” of manipulated elections. Thanks to serious chain of custody violations in Wisconsin — such as ballot bags discovered to have been left “wide open” and unsealed in Waukesha County, and ballots left completely unsecured for weeks in the office of the Verona City Clerk in Dane County — that now make it quite likely the real winner of the April 5th election for a 10-year term on the bench of that state’s highest court will never be known for certain. That, even though thousands of votes have now been verified as having been miscounted during the state’s partial hand-count, and even as the hotly-contested seat in question will determine the ideological balance of the court during one of the most contentious moments in Badger State history. The majority of voters in Wisconsin cast their votes on hand-marked paper ballots. However, due to a failure to count those ballots publicly on Election Night, at the precinct, in front of the public (as per “Democracy’s Gold Standard”), citizens are left guessing and forced to place misguided trust in partisan election officials like GOP activist and Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus and her unsecure chain of custody and election reporting procedures...more at BradBlog.com.

• The Peter B. Collins Show PODCAST!
  
  Listen at PeterBCollins.com!
  The Peter B. Collins Show covers American news and politics from the Left Coast. Veteran talk radio personality Peter B. Collins, based in San Francisco, delivers fresh interviews, commentary and analysis on a range of important topics, with views and voices you don’t often find in the corporate media.
  • PBC Live! Weekly on KGO PBC Live! Weekly on KGO Your humble host has been remiss in keeping you apprised of his other media activities. Since February, I’ve been hosting a regular weekly show on KGO, the leading San Francisco talk station with a huge coverage area–at night, you can hear it anywhere on the West Coast. TFN (till further notice), you can hear me every Friday night–or, more precisely, Saturday morning, from 1-5 am (PDT) on 810-AM or streaming at www.kgoradio.com. If you’d like to be alerted each week, sign up on Facebook as a fan of “Peter B. Collins Show” or you can follow me on Twitter, @pbcsf
  • PBC Podcast 247 Fight Against Patriot Act Renewal and FBI Police-State Tactics Heats Up; Florida Criminalizes Poverty and Cuts Unemployment Benefits Shahid Buttar, the rhymin’ executive director of Bill of Rights Defense Committee returns to talk about FBI abuses, this month’s vote in Congress on extending the Patriot Act, and the appointment of a new FBI director this year; Keith McHenry, co-founder of Food Not Bombs, reports on the efforts in Florida...
  • PBC Podcast 251 Boiling Frogs: Turkish Exile Gulen Runs Madrasas in Asia, Charter Schools in US Dr. Aland Mizell, a worldwide expert on Turkey and its oppressed Kurdish minority, exposes the Gulen movement. This is the latest instalment in the Boiling Frogs interview series, co-hosted with Sibel Edmonds.
  • PBC Podcast 252 Jason Leopold Excloo: Abu Zubaydah “Lost an Eye”; PBC on Arnold’s Bastards; Will Durst Sez Men Are Pigs Jason Leopold’s Truthout exclusive: alleged “high-value” detainee Abu Zubaydah had his left eye removed shortly after he was captured in 2002–and doesn’t know why! PBC comments that it wasn’t just the housekeeper who got screwed by Schwarzeneger, and Will Durst comments on the current sex scandals.
  • PBC Podcast 253 Two Views on Obama’s Speech on Mideast: Prof. Steven Zunes and Col. Ann Wright President Obama gave a speech at the State Department on May 19, defining US policies toward the Arab uprisings and offering his clearest views to date on Israel/Palestine. We get comments from J. Stephen Zunes, Chair of Mideast Studies and Professor of Politics at University of San Francisco, and US Army Col. (retired) Ann Wright.

• Ring of Fire Radio
  
  Find us at http://ringoffireradio.com and http://goleft.tv/ hosted by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Mike Papantonio and Sam Seder
  Ring of Fire Radio - GoLeft TV - Robert F. Kennedy, Mike Papantonio, Sam Seder - Politics, Commentary, and News.
  This Week on Ring of Fire! May 20th, 2010
  • This week on Ring of Fire: Rolling Stone correspondent Matt Taibbi will be here to give us the case against one of the largest criminal institutions in America – Goldman Sachs.
  • Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, will be joining us to discuss his group’s efforts to force the Chamber of Commerce to disclose whose campaigns they are pouring money into.
  • Dr. Scott Noren will be here to tell us how we can take the lessons from Wisconsin and create a strong progressive activist base to fight back against the Tea Party.
  • And author Seth Fletcher will tell us why foreign auto manufacturers have managed to get the upper hand in clean hybrid technology, leaving American auto companies in the dust.
  • VIDEO! Papantonio: Blue Dog Democrat Losers Mike Papantonio and Ed Schultz rip the Democrat turncoats who are pushing for more oil drilling and more big oil subsidies, in spite of the fact that the general public is against giving these behemoths any more money.
  • VIDEO! Papantonio: Koch Bros Driving Up Gasoline Prices American consumers are paying astronomical prices for gas today, and economists are warning us that this increase in cost could cause the economy to slip back into a recession. The Republicans’ plan to solve the crisis is simple – let’s just drill for oil in every available square inch of America. Not only would this destroy our environment and our health, it completely ignores the root of the problem – it isn’t a shortage of oil driving up our prices, it’s the actions of oil speculators and brokers on Wall Street. These people drive the price of oil up, and reap huge profits as a result. Mike Papantonio talks about how this happens with Lee Fang, an investigative journalist with Think Progress.
  • Join our blog at www.ringoffireradio.com. You can now SUBSCRIBE TO OUR PODCAST by clicking on the “Podcast” tab at the top of the Ring of Fire blog. Please help support progressive radio by signing up!
  Ring of Fire Radio Ring of Fire, hosted by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Mike Papantonio and Sam Seder: Saturdays at 3 o’clock Eastern, rebroadcasts Sunday nights at 8 pm (4 pm on XM 167) featuring The PAP Attack! "We’ll bring you the stories that the mainstream media didn’t feel like reporting this week."

• Majority Report with Sam Seder Streaming LIVE weekdays 11:30 am et @ Majority.fm!
  
  • Digby of Hullabaloo on the Debt Ceiling [05•16•11]
  • Matt Taibbi on The People vs. Goldman Sachs [05•17•11]
  • The Supreme Court Has OK'd Warrantless Searches [05•18•11]
  • Princeton Prof. Eddie Glaude on Cornel West and Pres. Obama [05•19•11]
  MORE Podcast Interviews at majorityreport.official.fm!

• On the Edge with Max Keiser Podcasts and more @ MaxKeiser.com!
  
  "HI Y'ALL! Tell the people! Tell the people!"
  WHO IS MAX KEISER? Max Keiser is a financial expert, Prediction Markets analyst, inventor and filmmaker. He is the creator of the Hollywood Stock Exchange (HSX) the first Prediction Market. Max Keiser co-hosts “The Truth About Markets” on ResonanceFM 104.4 in London. He also produces and presents documentary films covering markets and finance for Al Jazeera’s “People & Power” series. Max Keiser started his career on Wall Street in 1983. He is the creator of KarmaBanque a site that enables activists to challenge corporate power.
  • VISIT PirateMyFilm.com!!! Crowd Funding for Pirates!
  • VIDEO! The Official Silver Liberation Army! See SilverLiberationArmy.com !
  • INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM IS BACK!!!! MATT TAIBBI’S SCATHING EXPOSE OF GOLDMAN KNOCKS BILLIONS OF STOCK PRICE Read Dick Bove Cuts Goldman To Sell, Lowers Price Target From $163 To $120 at zerohedge and Matt Taibbi – The People vs Goldman Sachs at RollingStone.com
  • KEISER REPORT Keiser Report: Snow Globe of Denial & Starbucks’ Schultz is Financially Illiterate We interview Reggie Middleton. ZEROHEDGE: Reggie Middleton and Max Keiser Discussing Goldman Sachs, the Super-Powered race to the bottom three, banks as the “new tobacco companies” and Choking on ZIRP WANT MORE STARBUCKS SCANDALS!!!!! U.S. sues Starbucks for firing dwarf …
  • KEISER REPORT Keiser Report: Suicide Banking We interview Gregor Macdonald.
  • THE TRUTH ABOUT MARKETS [TAM1199] The Truth About Markets – 14 May 2011 OUR 1200′th RADIO/PODCAST!!!!!!! Download mp3 HERE
  • THE TRUTH ABOUT MARKETS [TAM1200] The Truth About Markets – 21 May 2011 OUR 1200′th RADIO/PODCAST!!!!!!! Download mp3 HERE Donations to ResonanceFM here.
  • ON THE EDGE [OTE109] On the Edge with John Perkins
  • ON THE EDGE [OTE110] On the Edge with Paul Craig Roberts

• ANTIWAR RADIO with Scott Horton
  LIVE (9-11am Pacific, 12pm - 2pm Eastern) Plenty of archives too!
  Listen at antiwar.com/radio
  • Imad-ad-Dean Ahmade May 16, 2011: Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad, founder of the Minaret of Freedom Institute, discusses the typically sycophantic White House response to Israel’s shooting of peaceful Nakba protesters; Israel’s core founding myth, especially to Americans: no indigenous population existed (a.k.a. there is no such thing as a Palestinian); Palestinian peace activists initiating a third, peaceful, intifada in the spirit of the Arab Spring revolutions; the unquestioned absurdity of Israel “defending its borders” of the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, from Syrians; the Egyptian-moderated Fatah/Hamas unity agreement for new elections and a functioning coalition government; the interminable “peace process” that remains fatally flawed while the US refuses to act as a genuine “honest broker;” and how the hopelessly-devoted US Congress sees Israel as a crucial domestic priority, not an object of foreign policy.
  • Jason Leopold May 16, 2011: Investigative reporter Jason Leopold discusses his article “Filling in the Gaping Holes in WikiLeaks’ Guantanamo Detainee Files;” how the FBI emails (available here) on Guantanamo prisoner detention conditions indicate torture was the primary means of extracting “evidence;” the torture of Mohammed al-Qahtani, choreographed in the White House by top Bush administration officials; Bush speech writer Marc Thiessen’s admission that KSM was tortured for compliance, not actionable intelligence (which is the whole torture program writ large); and why evidence beyond WikiLeaks documents – especially photos and videos – is needed to get the public’s attention.
  • Mark Sheffield May 20, 2011: Mark Sheffield of the Policy on Point blog discusses his article “Screwing the Swedes: Lockheed vs. SAAB;” how Lockheed’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter beat out SAAB’s JAS-39 Gripen fighter (with much lobbying help from the US government) for the contract to modernize Norway’s air force; a behind-the-scenes look at the cutthroat business of international arms dealing, courtesy WikiLeaks; how Russia has been surrounded by fleets of top-end jets in neighboring Western-allied and NATO countries; and how the US delayed the transfer of hi-tech radar to SAAB – which would have made the Gripen more competitive – until the Norwegian deal was complete.
  • John Feffer May 20, 2011: John Feffer, co-director of Foreign Policy In Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies, discusses the Afghanistan debate following Osama bin Laden’s death; his disagreement with Jonathan Landay, who says we can’t withdraw for fear of the terrible consequences; the sea-change in public opinion (and even in Congress and among elite opinion-makers) on the wisdom of staying in Afghanistan; why Syria may be a bridge too far for US intervention; the failed “kill the chicken to scare the monkey” US strategy in Libya; bin Laden’s partial victory, wherein the US empire is bankrupt and failing, but Islamic radicalization was eschewed in favor of a democratic, non-fundamentalist Arab Spring; how neoconservatives and antiwar libertarians are close cousins with similar backgrounds who have arrived at diametrically opposed worldviews; whether the US empire is a stabilizing force globally, or an impediment to ending unhealthy stalemates (as on the Korean peninsula); and the complex (wonkish even) history of N. Korea’s uranium enrichment program, plutonium nuclear weapons, and broken deals with successive US administrations.
  Many more interviews at Antiwar Radio!

• fauxnews
  • Herman Cain
  • Sen. Mitch McConnell, (R) Kentucky / Minority Leader

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