Bill's Big Diamond Blog

In the midst of the all-Rove discussions this weekend, a little reality seeps through. Passing through the blogosphere, I stopped by Riverbend to see if she had weighed in recently from Baghdad. She had. Riverbend reported sadly that another blogger, Khalid Jarrar, author of Tell Me a Secret, had been abducted by “the new Iraqi mukhabarat.”

It’s one thing to read the numbers and the see the faceless stories from Iraq. It’s another to be touched by someone’s words and then to know they’ve been taken off, to God knows where, perhaps to rot in jail, perhaps to worse. You get a glimpse of what someone cares about and what their daily existence is like, then see they’ve offended the authorities your own government has set up. By doing what? By simply writing about their life, or turning the wrong corner at the wrong time on the wrong day. Who knows?

Khalid is a blogger I’ve read off and on. His brother Raed is a prolific blogger and both of them have been good sources of information about daily life in occupied Baghdad since the invasion. Khalid had most recently been in Amman, Jordan. He had finished exams at university in Baghdad and had reported about a mortar blowing up one of his fellow students this May (he had suffered from some student laziness and missed class that day). Before that, there was a car bomb 100 meters away from his family’s home. And before that…well, you get the picture. Go, read his blog.

Khalid had recently posted about using real names in his blog and about transparency, a post that makes me now worry for him. Naturally, he’s been critical of the madness around him.
He is now somewhere in an Iraqi prison. His family is thankful to know he isn’t dead. His brother Raed writes today, “my brother is spending his 6th night in jail. He's just one of the thousands of people in Iraq who disappeared and ended up in one of the many jails and prisons around the country without a clear reason.”

Make Judy Talk    The Talent Show is a prolific blogger and both of them have been good sources of information about daily life in occupied Baghdad since the invasion. Khalid had most recently been in Amman, Jordan. He had finished exams at university in Baghdad and had reported about a mortar blowing up one of his fellow students this May (he had suffered from some student laziness and missed class that day). Before that, there was a car bomb 100 meters away from his family’s home. And before that…well, you get the picture. Go, read his blog.

Khalid had recently posted about using real names in his blog and about transparency, a post that makes me now worry for him. Naturally, he’s been critical of the madness around him.
He is now somewhere in an Iraqi prison. His family is thankful to know he isn’t dead. His brother Raed writes today, “my brother is spending his 6th night in jail. He's just one of the thousands of people in Iraq who disappeared and ended up in one of the many jails and prisons around the country without a clear reason.”

WHERE'S THE OUTRAGE? from the Prospect

Frank Rich has a very shrill column touching on Armstrong Williams, the White House’s propaganda operations, and the reprehensible, coddled insularity of the punditry club that’s really worth reading. Boy, is it shrill. read on

Rich pillories the “hard-hitting” co-hosts of Crossfire for lobbing marshmallows at Williams during his January 7 appearance, caressing him with chummy bromides and puffery. Indeed, I’d say that the most serious issues that the Williams story raises have little to do with the bottomless hackery of a single lame VRWC peon. The two real stories here are this White House’s regular use of taxpayer money for openly partisan propaganda campaigns, and the grotesque clubbiness and complacency of a punditry class (particularly its cable news component) that no longer has the ability to recognize the problem to which it is so central. The latter problem abets the former -- it has for the last four years.

8 Students Injured in Ind. Knife Attack

By TOM COYNE, Associated Press Writer

VALPARAISO, Ind. - A high school student wielding two knives slashed eight schoolmates Wednesday, authorities said. The injuries were not believed to be life-threatening.

This was before the start of the hearing yesterday.
Bush: He's got the----intellect---ahh-to bring--a lot-a lot of class to that court.

Download | play -WMP ( hat tip David Edwards for the video)

I don't know if he got his wires crossed, but he can't even speak for a minute an a half without stumbling and bumbling.

The Colbert Report last night featured one of the most subversive and brutally honest half-hours of television in recent memory. It's a sad commentary that it takes a comedy program to provide more news and information on one of the most critical subjects in American politics that anywhere else in our broken media and political landscape, but I'll take this argument wherever I can get it.

Colbert spent two full segments of his show focusing on the Citizens United Supreme Court case, which could - and probably will - lead to deregulating the entire campaign finance process, allowing corporations to give unlimited money to any candidate of their choosing. This severe step backwards with enormous implications has been barely discussed in any traditional media setting, but Colbert went after it vigorously, discussing the consequences and even the flawed legal rationale, a true third rail of American politics, corporate personhood.

Colbert explained that the 1886 case (Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific Railroad) that conferred 14th Amendment equal protection rights onto corporations wasn't even in the original ruling. But when the Chief Justice made an off-hand comment that the Court wouldn't hear an argument on whether the 14th Amendment applied to these corporations (saying, "We are all of the opinion that it does"), the court reporter wrote it into the ruling opinion, and the precedent has held ever since. And that reporter of the Supreme Court didn't only have ties to the railroad barons, he used to run one.

These are subjects you just never hear about in the American media, precisely because the American media is owned by giant multinational corporations, who benefit from the corporate personhood rule and would stand to benefit more from deregulating elections so they could use their "speech" to buy candidates and fund their own with unlimited resources. And despite being on a Viacom-owned network, Colbert says, skewering the immorality and psychopathology of the corporation, "Corporations are legally people... they do everything people do, except breathe, die, and go to jail for dumping 1.3 million pounds of PCBs into the Hudson River."

There's some backstory to that remark. Colbert actually worked with Robert Smigel on the "TV Funhouse" bits from Saturday Night Live (he's one-half of the Ambiguously Gay Duo), including the infamous episode from March 1998, Conspiracy Theory Rock. Here are some of the actual lyrics (remember this aired, albeit one time, on NBC, whose parent company is General Electric):

It's a media-opoly

A media-opoly.

The whole media is controlled by a few corporations

thanks to deregulation by the FCC.

You mean Disney, Fox, WestingHouse, and good ol GE?

They own networks from CBS to CNBC.

They can use them to say whatever they please,

and put down the opinions of any one who disagrees.

Or stuff about PCB's.

What are PCB's?

They come from power plants built by WestingHouse and GE.

They can give you lots of cancer that can hurt your body,

but on network TV, you rarely hear anything bad about the nuclear industry [...]

But the bigshots don't care.

They're all sitting pretty.

Thanks to corporate welfare.

What's that now?

They get billions in subsidies

from the government.

It's supposed to create jobs,

but that's not how it's spent.

They pulled this cartoon from the rerun broadcasts and it never aired again.

Colbert didn't just provide this lesson in corporate control of government in his "The Word" segment, but then had Jeffrey Toobin on to explain how the expected Supreme Court ruling would impact elections:

COLBERT: If this goes through, if they decide in favor of the corporations here, what's going to happen to elections?

TOOBIN: Well, they will be essentially deregulated. Corporations will be allowed to give money, corporations will be allowed to broadcast programs that are in favor of one side or another, it'll basically be no more rules about what corporations can do in political campaigns.

COLBERT: Now when I ran for President in 2008, as the Hail to the Cheese Doritos Stephen Colbert campaign for President, I was told that I actually couldn't do that, that I was breaking federal election law by being sponsored by that corporation. But if this goes through, if this court case, if they win, does that mean that I retroactively won the election?

TOOBIN: I don't think it means that.

COLBERT: But could you do that? Could I actually just wear a NASCAR suit and just have logos all over me and run for President as the sort of Gatorade Thirst for Justice campaign for President?

TOOBIN: You definitely could. No question.

Continue reading »

The Left Coaster: You can go to a soldier's funeral now, Mr. President

Politics in the Zeros: The unexpected return of class war

Where's the Outrage?: A doctor examines a sick patient.

MediaBloodhound: Leaked memo of McCain camp's future Hail Marys

The E&P Pub: John McCain vs the Des Moines Register

The Story of Stuff: A fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns, exposing the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues. (h/t swimgirl)

STLtoday:

JEFFERSON CITY -- Missouri state Rep. Scott Muschany, R-Frontenac, was indicted today in connection with a reported sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl on May 17, the day after this year’s Legislative session ended.

The alleged victim is the daughter of a state employee. The girl’s mother and Muschany -– who is married and has two children -- were romantically involved, the woman said.

A Cole County grand jury returned an indictment today charging Muschany with the Class C felony of "deviate sexual assault." The indictment identifies the victim only by initials. It says that on May 17, Muschany "had deviate sexual intercourse" with the girl, "knowing that he did so without" her consent.

The document also alleges that the mother "did admit that the incident did take place, including her witnessing same." Read on...

After so many Republican sex crimes and scandals, you just have to scratch your head and wonder how one party could attract so many deviant hypocrites. Ready for the money shot? Muschany co-sponsored a bill in 2006 that toughened sex offender laws.

CNN:

Water with trace amounts of radioactivity may have been leaking for months from a U.S. Navy nuclear-powered submarine as it traveled around the Pacific to ports in Guam, Japan and Hawaii, Navy officials told CNN Friday.

The leak was found on the USS Houston, a Los Angeles class fast attack submarine, after it came to Hawaii for routine maintenance last month, Navy officials said.

Navy officials believe the amount of radiation leaked was virtually undetectable. But the Navy alerted the Japanese government because the submarine had been docked in Japan.

I'm sure it's no big deal. Pay no attention to that three-eyed fish, that's what they're supposed to look like.

Talk about "elitism." Last night while discussing "downscale voters," salt-of-the-earth FOX News contributor (and Weekly Standard editor) Fred Barnes ridiculed and demeaned working class Americans by making the distinction that they aren't "lower income," but rather "lower class."

Download | play Download | play (h/t Bill W.)

Look at the smug look on his face as he demeans the majority of Americans. Apparently to Barnes union workers and, indeed, anyone who actually labors for a living, is not as good as him. Kudos to the panel who, for reasons you can decide yourselves, distances themselves from his insensitive and bone-headed remarks.

Something tells me we're looking at Duncan's "Wanker of the day."

TPM has more and Faiz sums it up nicely:

Hume opened the segment by asking Barnes to elaborate on his view that many of Hillary Clinton’s supporters are “downscale.” Barnes could hardly contain his laughter as he explained that the term “working class” is a euphemism because “it’s kind of mean to say ‘lower class.’ It’s as simple as that.” He explained that the “lower class” are people of low “social class.”

Altercation:

The Federici family and the E Street family have requested that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Danny Federici Melanoma Fund. The fund's website is now up and running, where it is described as "dedicated to the research and development of new and effective treatments for melanoma through funding for additional clinical trials based upon Danny's melanoma treatments and other methods headed by Dr. Paul Chapman [at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center]. Our other objective is to raise awareness for this aggressive disease."

I met Danny before he got back together with Springsteen's band in the 90's and he was a very kind and gentle man who really loved his music and his family.

Today is the anniversary of my mom's passing away. She suffered with Diabetes (a terrible disease) for many, many years which left her legally blind for a while and in April of 2003---she was diagnosed with a form of bone cancer that quickly spread throughout her body.

I was fortunate enough to talk with her on the phone for a few minutes the day before she died and I was able to tell her how much I loved her. She was barely lucid yet somehow knew I was on the phone. "I can hear you, Johnny. I'm not in pain," she said. " I'm proud of you." " I love you mom," was all I could say. "Johnny, I have to go," and then she drifted off.

She was like many Italian moms in New York, marrying a guy named Rocky and raising two kids in the early fifties. She valued family above all, was semi-religious and was one of the many working class moms that handled the checkbook and worked a second job whenever possible to help make ends meet.

She had an inner strength about her that I never really understood or appreciated until I started to have my own physical problems and made the rounds through our health care system. She had to take insulin twice a day just to stay alive and endured many experimental eye surgery's in Manhattan and Johns Hopkins in the early eighties just to try and stave off blindness---which in the end was the one thing that scared her the most. But she always fought through it and lived many years beyond the conventional medical predictions.

She died comfortably with my sister and father (they were married for over 50 years) at her side as I traveled to Florida to see her. I don't usually write these type of posts, but I just wanted to say, "I miss you, Mom."

03/12/1930--04/23/2004

Josephine Amato RIP