Wyclef Jean has filed papers to run for president of Haiti, and Sean Penn is skeptical.

Interviewed on CNN last night as Wyclef officially announced his bid, Penn said, "This is somebody who's going to receive an enormous amount of support from the United States, and I have to say I'm very suspicious of it, simply because he, as an ambassador at large, has been virtually silent. For those of us in Haiti, he has been a non-presence," Penn said.

Penn, who has been active in Haiti since the earthquake, highlighted allegations that Wyclef mishandled $400,000 donated for the country through his Yele Haiti foundation. "He claims he didn't do it. That has to be looked into it," said Penn, who has been running a 55,000-person tent camp through the J/P Haitian Relief Organization he co-founded. "I've been there. I know what $400,000 could do for these people's lives."

He added, "I'm not accusing Wyclef Jean of being an opportunist; I don't know the man," Penn told Wolf Blitzer, who was filling in for Larry King. "One of the reasons I don't know very much about Wyclef Jean is that I haven't seen or heard anything of him in these last six months that I've been in Haiti."

Swing State Project: Well, it didn't take Doug Hoffman long to start bringing the crazy...

My Left Nutmeg: Dodd pursues sweeping financial regulatory changes

Pruning Shears: The long climb back

field negro: Here in Mississippi, we don't need our blacks educated

Pam's House Blend: Pathetically ignorant and perpetually dishonest Republican contributes more battsh*ttery to the public discourse

TPMMuckraker: CREW calls on State Dept. to probe Galbraith over Kurdish oil dealings

Hi, This is Bob Morris from Politics in the Zeros guest blogging this week. My blog covers antiwar, global warming, peak oil, and the political intersections thereof. All the causes are linked, it seems to me. If we stop spending billions on wars, then we can spend it here to create clean, renewable energy. Send tips and links to bob at polizeros dot com.

The CEO of a Houston investment bank says Peak Oil is real and happening now.

Michigan doctor Catherine Wilkerson goes on trial tomorrow for felony assault for attempting to give medical aid to a protester rendered unconscious by police at a protest. Defend Wilkerson.

Kevin Rudd, the just-elected new leader of Australia, says global warming will be a main priority. Are you listening, US presidential candidates?

Britain has denied asylum to Uzbek dissident Jahongir Sidikov and plans to send him back where he will face torture. Former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray is trying to mobilize support for Sidikov before it's too late.

Psst, there's a Liberal Conspiracy in Britain now.

Send tips this week to bob (DOT) morris (AT) gmail (DOT) com. (Hint: it does not have to be from your own blog. If you see something great, pass it on...)

Arvin Hill: American jurisprudence gone BUCK-wild!  (Although sometimes it’s nice to hear from a Vogon, as opposed to the usual Krikkiters.) 

Joe Bageant, author of Deer Hunting with Jesus, on losers, leftnecks, and trench liberals: “So the party of Roosevelt begins to dimly understand that now is the opportunity to re-associate itself with populism. The problem is that Democratic Party ‘leadership’ has no notion of what populism means.” 

Then again, asks Alternate Brain, how do you get through to the 60-year-old man who told Michael Moore he’d “rather have no insurance than socialized medicine”?  Badtux the Snarky Penguin has one compelling argument. 

Continue reading »

Interesting career choice, Tony. Credibility might not be there, though.

Tony Blair is preparing a mission to build bridges between the major world religions when he leaves office, and plans to act as an ambassador for multi-faith dialogue in Britain and abroad.

Friends of the Prime Minister have told The Independent on Sunday that he is planning to set up a Blair Foundation soon after leaving No 10, and one of its main aims will be to promote communication between Christianity, Islam and Judaism.

But the plan has been greeted with incredulity among MPs who say he has done more to create divisions between Islam and the West than any Prime Minister in living memory.

TPM Muckraker: (h/t DLBB)

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper will give a formal apology to Maher Arar, the Canadian software engineer whom the United States detained and extradited to Syria, where he was brutally tortured.

The announcement, which appears to be a public rebuke of the official U.S. position that Arar may be a terrorist, is set for 12:15, according to Harper's office. Arar will hold a separate news conference at 2 p.m.

Arar's case has caused a deepening rift between Canada and the United States, which has to date refused to apologize for their treatment of Arar and will not remove him from its terrorist watch list. Yesterday, the National Post reported that the U.S. ambassador to Canada "scolded" a top Canadian offical for insisting Arar's name be removed from the U.S. watch list.

Meanwhile, Sen Patrick Leahy demands that Gonzo explain himself on the Arar case.

Glenn Greenwald compares a tale of two governments

UPDATE: C&Ler STOP George tipped us to this new development: A Canadian Commission on the extraordinary rendition case of Maher Arar has recommended that the RCMP withold information from countries with "questionable human rights records". That's right, folks, the former shining beacon of democracy is now considered by Canada to have a questionable human rights record. How proud our Founding Fathers must be.

I'm surprised this guy isn't on the short list for a Medal of Freedom.

AP via Houston Chronicle:

Tens of millions of dollars and repeated security reviews haven't stopped embarrassing security breakdowns in the government's nuclear weapons program - and now the man in charge has been sent packing.

Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman on Thursday ousted the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, which maintains the nuclear weapons stockpile and oversees the nation's weapons research laboratories.

"I have decided it is time for new leadership at the NNSA," Bodman said in announcing that the agency's chief, Linton Brooks, would resign within the month.

Brooks, a former ambassador and arms control negotiator, said he accepted the decision, one he understood was "based on the principle of accountability that should govern all public service."

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Lassiter Space: More (unbelievable) war sh#t

Eteraz: Creating a Left narrative on Iran. Plus, an interview with Iran’s UN ambassador

FindLaw's Writ: John Dean writes that focusing on those who have aided and abetted, or directly engaged in, the commission of high crimes and misdemeanors would have all the positives, and none of the negatives, of going after Bush and Cheney

Needlenose:Farewell, Billmon?

Simply Left Behind: So long, and thanks for all the fish

HOLY CRAP: The proponents of the "intelligent design" theory of the universe are on the run...some prefer sound science...Which deep pockets are right for you? A consumer's guide...Have you been saved? What a question!...10 myths and 10 truths—about atheism...

MSNBC:

Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, an unabashed apostle of Reagan era conservatism and the first woman U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, has died.

The death of the 80-year-old Kirkpatrick, who began her public life as a Hubert Humphrey Democrat, was announced Friday at the senior staff meeting of the U.S. mission to the United Nations and on the Web site of the American Enterprise Institute, where she had been a senior fellow.

In all honesty, my best memory of Jeane Kirkpatrick has nothing to do with her but with an imagined exchange between her and her "lover", Al Franken, in the introduction of Franken's book Rush Limbaugh is a Big, Fat Idiot (scroll about 2/3 down the page to read the exchange).

It's tough breaking through that wall of denial.

Froomkin:

It's often said that the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. But there maybe nothing that goes against President Bush's nature more than doing just that.

Bush's goal is a stable, secure, democratic Iraq. His strategy is for American troops to stay there until that happens. The tactics are getting those troops killed. And while the president has been talking about adjusting tactics lately, but he can't accept that his strategy may need changing -- or even his goal. At least not yet...read on

Nieman WatchDog: Chas Freeman, a former ambassador to Saudi Arabia, writes that we have lost international support not because foreigners hate our values but because they believe we are repudiating them and behaving contrary to them.