The Obama administration acknowledged for the first time Wednesday that four American citizens have been killed in drone strikes since 2009 in Pakistan and Yemen. The disclosure, in a letter from Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, comes on the eve of a major national security speech by President Barack Obama.

Al-Awlaki, a radical Muslim cleric, was killed in a drone strike in September 2011 in Yemen. Holder said three other Americans were killed by drones in counterterrorism operations since 2009 but were not targeted.

The three are Samir Khan, who was killed in the same drone strike as al-Awlaki; al-Awlaki's 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman, who also was killed in Yemen two weeks later; and Jude Kennan Mohammed, who was killed in a drone strike in Pakistan.

WaPo:

Holder said that only Anwar al-Awlaki was “specifically targeted.” Khan was known to have been killed by the strike that targeted Awlaki, while the 16-year-old was killed in what senior administration officials described as a “mistake,” when he was in the company of another targeted individual shortly after his father’s death.

Mohammad was indicted in 2009 by a federal grand jury in North Carolina, where he had lived near Raleigh. The indictment said he was believed to have left the United States for Pakistan in 2008 to “engage in violent jihad.”
...

Reached in North Carolina Wednesday, Mohammad’s mother, Elena Mohammad, said she had been aware for some time that her son had been killed in a drone strike, but was told by people in Pakistan, not by U.S. authorities. Her ex-husband is Pakistani.

Mohammad said she had no details on when or where her son was killed. She also said she had no interest in discussing her son’s past.

“I dealt with that and I don’t have to deal with it anymore because it’s already over with,” she said in the phone interview. “So whatever transpired I don’t want it back in my life anymore. It’s gone. There are no questions. I don’t have to hear any authorities; the FBI has finished coming to my house. It’s over. That’s it.”

During Obama's scheduled counterterrorism policy speech on Thursday, he will discuss his belief that it's in the best interests of the nation to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

It is not clear whether or not the President will discuss the transfer of detainees, or the repatriation of those cleared for release during Thursday's speech.

Holder said in his letter, that Obama “has made clear his commitment to providing Congress and the American people with as much information as possible about our sensitive counterterrorism operations.”

You can read Holder's letter here.

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Conservative radio host Glenn Beck on Wednesday compared the U.S. government to "rapists" over recent so-called scandals, from the Internal Revenue Service's practice of scrutinizing conservative groups to last year's terrorist attacks in Benghazi.

In a bizarre rant on his radio show, Beck said that he didn't know why Congress was bothering with an investigation into the scandals because the federal government had been building a massive spying database in Utah.

"What is being built in Utah is the largest storage facility ever known to mankind," he explained. "They are storing all of the information. They have already admitted during the Boston bombings that they collect all emails and file it. Why are you asking the White House for the emails? Who is this security system for? Is it to protect the American people?"

"What the hell are we doing? What's wrong with us, America?" he continued. "You paid for it. You own it. You're the boss or are they? Why ask for it? Just go into the system that we paid for and you built for for our -- quote -- protection. You want to find it? Why are you waiting? The more you wait, the more time they have to delete. Go in and get it. You have it."

"Or is that security system you built for our protection not really for our protection?"

Beck added: "The American people have just been raped. Why are you asking rapists to hurry up with the swab test?"

(h/t: Right Wing Watch)

The Hunting of the Snark: Whatever the facts…

Vox Verax: Republicans natter about "I" word.

First Draft: A masterpiece of the false equivalence genre.

The Impolitic: Ted Cruz don't trust nobody but himself.

Balloon Juice: Wishing for bigger middle fingers.

Guest post by Batocchio. E-mail tips to mbru AT crooksandliars DOT com.

Re-arranging the deck chairs (and sunbathers) for the book "The Art of Clean Up." The perfect Father's Day gift your kids can give your OCD ex-husband. Just sayin'.

The Art of Clean Up: Life Made Neat and Tidy
	Author: Ursus Wehrli Price: $9.04 (As of 05/22/13 10:34 am details)

Open thread below...

Motown Anthology
	Artist: Chuck Jackson Price: $5.13 (As of 05/22/13 07:01 pm details)

Here's a singer. Got a favorite vocal performance?

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ABC's Jonathan Karl and his part in helping to feed the scandal-mongering over Benghazi wasn't the only recent Republican drummed up outrage Stephen Colbert decided to take on during this Monday's show. After his "Mazda-Scandal Booth" on Benghazi, Colbert took his next turn in the booth on the IRS, grasping "wildly at any accusation that floats past."

And as Arturo Garcia from Raw Story reported, here's what he found: Colbert concludes tea partiers are ‘a bunch of pussies’ after consulting his lawyer:

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Arizona’s abortion law is unconstitutional, according to a federal appeals court. About a year ago, the state banned abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy except in medical emergencies. But a circuit court now ruled that the government has no right to ban an abortion before a fetus “is viable.” The judge said the state “may not proscribe a woman from electing abortion, nor may it impose an undue burden on her choice through regulation.” Time will tell what this ruling means—particularly in other states with tough abortion restrictions such as North Dakota, which has banned abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.

The Hill:

“Today’s decision is a huge victory in the fight to protect women’s fundamental reproductive rights, and it should send a clear message to anti-choice politicians that their attempts to deprive pregnant women of critical health care are clearly unconstitutional and will not hold up in court," said Sally Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights.

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The Republican nominee for lieutenant governor in Virginia says that he is a Christian and has no reason to apologize for his history against of hate speech against LGBT people, liberals and abortion providers.

It was only after African-American minister E.W. Jackson won the nomination at the Virginia Republican Party Convention last week that many became aware of his history of saying gay people were "perverted" and "sick people psychologically."

"Homosexuality is a horrible sin, it poisons culture, it destroys families, it destroys societies; it brings the judgment of God unlike very few things that we can think of," he said last year.

He has also called Democrats "slave masters" and compared Planned Parenthood to the Ku Klux Klan."

"Liberalism and their ideas have done more to kill black folks whom they claim so much to love than the Ku Klux Klan, lynching and slavery and Jim Crow ever did, now that’s a fact," Jackson said in a 2012 interview.

On Tuesday, Jackson told reporters that he had no intention of apologizing.

"I say the things that I say because I’m a Christian, not because I hate anybody, but because I have religious values that matter to me," Jackson told reporters during a campaign event in Fredericksburg, according to The Washington Post. "Attacking me because I hold to those principles is attacking every church-going person, every family that’s living a traditional family life, everybody who believes that we all deserve the right to live."

"So I don’t have anything to rephrase or apologize for. I would just say people should not paint me as one-dimensional."

Thomas Jefferson must be rolling in his grave:

If a woman in Virginia has a miscarriage without a doctor present, they must report it within 24 hours to the police or risk going to jail for a full year. At least, that’s what would have happened if a bill introduced by Virginia state Sen. Mark Obenshain (R) had become law.

And yet, the Virginia Republican Party wants to make Obenshain into the state’s top prosecutor. This weekend, Virginia Republicans selected Obenshain as their nominee to replace tea party stalwart Ken Cuccinelli (R) as the state’s attorney general.

Under Obenshain’s bill, which was introduced in 2009,

When a fetal death occurs without medical attendance upon the mother at or after the delivery or abortion, the mother or someone acting on her behalf shall, within 24 hours, report the fetal death, location of the remains, and identity of the mother to the local or state police or sheriff’s department of the city or county where the fetal death occurred. No one shall remove, destroy, or otherwise dispose of any remains without the express authorization of law-enforcement officials or the medical examiner. Any person violating the provisions of this subsection shall be guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.

Under Virginia law, a Class 1 misdemeanor carries a maximum sentence of “confinement in jail for not more than twelve months and a fine of not more than $2,500,” so Obenshain’s bill could lead to a woman who decides to take a day to grieve the loss of a pregnancy she’d hoped to carry to term spending a year of her life in jail for that decision.

Unless all the normal people turn out in massive numbers to vote, you can kiss sanity goodbye for this state.

When I was writing my book on the history of American political debate and change - The Progressive Revolution: How The Best In America Came To Be - in 2008, I was doing some research on the sequence of events in the 1960s, I was struck by the fact that so many big things happened so close together. As I wrote in my book:

"The civil rights movement inspired other progressives not only to help in the civil rights cause but also to come together around a range of other issues and constituencies. A renewed wave of feminism was sparked in great part by Betty Friedan's influential book The Feminine Mystique. The environmental movement gained broad public appeal when Rachel Carson's Silent Spring became a best seller. Students began to organize themselves. The Port Huron statement, written by Tom Hayden and others, prompted young people to get involved in politics through the student and antiwar movements. Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was founded. Cesar Chavez used many of King's organizing tactics, as well as new ones of his own, to unionize farm workers in the agricultural fields of California. And as the 1960s wore on, progressives of all stripes looked with growing concern at the Vietnam War and began to protest in earnest against it.

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