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Off to Yearly Kos -- Open Thread

Traveling Day here to Chicago and Yearly Kos. I'm not really bringing all that luggage, but close enough.

I'll stop in here at the airport as wi-fi and time allow. In the meantime, here's an open thread.

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    the crux (5.00 / 1) (#2)
    by Sumner on Wed Aug 01, 2007 at 12:10:24 PM EST
    I spotted this right away.

    Is there no betting pool somewhere for when this mystery poster exposition hits the M$M?

    DoJ criminal division (5.00 / 1) (#7)
    by Sailor on Wed Aug 01, 2007 at 02:04:11 PM EST
    U.S. Attorney Became Target After Rebuffing Justice Dept.

    The night before the government secured a guilty plea from the manufacturer of the addictive painkiller OxyContin, a senior Justice Department official called the U.S. attorney handling the case and, at the behest of an executive for the drugmaker, urged him to slow down, the prosecutor told the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday.


    No defense witnesses for Padilla (none / 0) (#1)
    by Gabriel Malor on Wed Aug 01, 2007 at 11:38:20 AM EST
    It looks like the Padilla trial is coming to a close. Padilla is calling no witnesses in his own defense. His fellow defendants have just a few more to go and then the prosecution will get rebuttal. The jury could be deliberating as early as next week.

    CNN has the latest here. I was particularly surprised to see this:

    The trial had dragged on for 12 weeks, with the jury spending almost as much time out the courtroom as in the jury box. The jurors often have been sent out of the room or dismissed early as prosecutors and defense lawyers battle intently over evidence admissibility and the way witnesses are questioned.

    One such argument grew so heated late Monday that Cooke ordered a recess, prompting an apology Tuesday from Swor.

    "I was, I would say, close to being totally out of control," he said. "I would like to apologize to the court."

    Cooke then made Swor say he was sorry to prosecutor John Shipley, the object of his ire, "to complete your atonement process."

    "I do apologize to Mr. Shipley. It was unprofessional," Swor said.

    Shipley accepted.

    What must the jury think?

    Deepthroat Blogger (none / 0) (#3)
    by Oliver W Holmes the 3rd on Wed Aug 01, 2007 at 12:46:04 PM EST
    Posts now at Daily Kos and also

    2nd Daily Kos Diary plus links inside to other sites.

    As I noted at Kos,

    Being skeptical and cynical by nature, of the very little I have read, my "gut feeling" (which is more highly tuned then Chertoff's gut feeling), is that there is "there there".  To much knowledge and awareness to not have at least some very detailed knowledge of at minimum, some dirt and skeletons.

    We'll see.

    Any other information or what is YOUR "gut feeling"?

    my gut feeling... (5.00 / 1) (#4)
    by Sumner on Wed Aug 01, 2007 at 12:53:58 PM EST
    ... has always been that Orrin Hatch is somehow involved in all of this mess.

    Parent
    My gut feeling, aside from the post lunch rumbling (none / 0) (#5)
    by Ellie on Wed Aug 01, 2007 at 01:30:44 PM EST
    Never accept in muttered aside what should (and can) be obtained straight up, and up front and by rights should be available that way.

    If the muttered aside is supplementing prima materia -- lit. the original, "first" documents-- or providing context, opinion, insight, whatever, cool.

    If it's in place of prima materia that should by all rights be available to all involved parties, treat it as malicius disinformation or at the very least, a benign voice being abused to misdirect.

    Parent

    also... (none / 0) (#6)
    by Sumner on Wed Aug 01, 2007 at 01:54:45 PM EST
    thanks for the links to Daily Kos. From there I found "NSA Spying Bill Headed for Vote This Week!"

    Some have speculated that Sen. Arlen Specter's calls for clarification on the ubiquity of spying and giving generous time for parties to respond, was actually a dilatory tactic.

    After seeing that the other half of Congress, the House, is shortly prepared to foist in, the wholesale NSA spying authorization, I now believe that Sen. Specter is using a dillydally, footdragging subterfuge to run cover while the House rams the bill through.

    Parent

    a new Cabinet position, maybe? (none / 0) (#8)
    by Sumner on Wed Aug 01, 2007 at 04:41:14 PM EST
    Is America weird enough yet?

    (h/t jbarger)

    Hilarious (none / 0) (#9)
    by squeaky on Wed Aug 01, 2007 at 05:34:03 PM EST
    And from two of my faves, Barbara Ehrenreich and Jorn Barger.

    Thanks for the link Sumner.

    Parent

    it really is quite sad. (none / 0) (#10)
    by Sumner on Wed Aug 01, 2007 at 06:19:51 PM EST
    these moral panics are virtually a crime in and of themselves.
    after all the callous inculcation,
    they start acting all snooty like this (youtube)


    Parent
    Bridge (none / 0) (#11)
    by Peaches on Thu Aug 02, 2007 at 09:03:06 AM EST
    I go across this Bridge every day to and from work. I wasn't on it when it collapsed. From what I have learned since the bridge was determined to be structurally deficient in 2005. There are also several thousand bridges in our federal highway system with similar ratings. Is this another domestic priority we are neglecting while spending billions in Iraq?

    Not to correct you but (5.00 / 1) (#12)
    by Oliver W Holmes the 3rd on Thu Aug 02, 2007 at 09:23:49 AM EST
    rather then billions, or even hundreds of billions, now over one TRILLION and growing minute by minute.

    Parent
    Thanks the sun god.... (none / 0) (#13)
    by kdog on Thu Aug 02, 2007 at 09:42:30 AM EST
    you weren't on that sucker Peaches.  When I saw the news this morning I was worried about ya.

    Life is such a crapshoot that way, leave a half hour earlier or later and only the sun god knows.  

    Like my uncle being booked on the Pan Am flight that crashed over Lockerbie...he ran late and missed that disaster by ten measly minutes.

     

    Parent

    Random luck (none / 0) (#15)
    by Peaches on Thu Aug 02, 2007 at 10:33:11 AM EST
    And the odds were in my favor. It was bumper to bumper traffic with a lane closed down for traffic and an estimated 60 or so cars and trucks went down with it. Amazingly, many survivors, although recovery efforts in the river should discover some more drowning victims in the coming days.

    I am stuck in the bumper to bumper jams each day and it is only through breathing exercises and meditation practices I am able to maintain my sanity. So, many people in the world and so many in cars in the cities. Disasters happen and still, odds say, you will most likely avoid them. So far, I have not heard of any person on that bridge, nor discovered a connection to them through friends and relatives. Big World. Lots of people. Stuff happens. I just keep my fingers crossed and try not to think about the potential disasters awaiting all of us.

    Parent

    Yeah.... (none / 0) (#16)
    by kdog on Thu Aug 02, 2007 at 10:41:46 AM EST
    you rolled a 7 yesterday brother, on a very good day to roll a 7.

    And may we continue to roll 7's into old age before we roll crap.

    Parent

    Pentagon Iraq Withdrawal (none / 0) (#14)
    by Edger on Thu Aug 02, 2007 at 10:05:32 AM EST
    War games show Bush wrong on Iraq pullout; Qaeda unlikely to succeed.

    VIDEO: Olbermann interviews Thomas Ricks

    Supporters of the war in Iraq -- including President George W. Bush -- claim that a withdrawal of US forces would lead to an al Qaeda takeover of Iraq. Yet according to Pentagon war games, this scenario is highly unlikely.

    On Wednesday's Countdown Keith Olbermann interviewed Washington Post correspondent Thomas Ricks who discussed his article on Pentagon war gaming for a post-US Iraq.

    Pentagon simulations on US withdrawal find the most likely scenario would be a three-way split of the country between Kurds, Shias, and Sunnis. Ricks warns while the breakup would be "very ugly," with possibly "tens of thousands of people dying," an al Qaeda takeover of Iraq would not be possible by "any stretch of the imagination."



    IT WAS a terrorist trial (none / 0) (#17)
    by Edger on Thu Aug 02, 2007 at 11:33:31 AM EST
    that seemed to have everything - including a CIA agent testifying in disguise and a mysterious reference to a female donkey. But the long-awaited court appearance of Jose Padilla, a US citizen once known as America's "dirty bomber", has turned out to be missing a crucial ingredient - evidence that he actually did anything wrong.
    But as the Times Online titled it's article last week the US `dirty bomber' is a trial for CIA.

    Good peg, but I think that Padilla's trial is much more than that:

    It is the continuing trial of the government and the Bush Administration, and more specifically it is a trial of George W. Bush, who leads that government, and of Bush's supporters.

    It is also a trial of the American system of justice, itself.

    Only from the far side of the looking glass can it be considered a trial of Jose Padilla.

    It is quite obvious what the government is fighting to preserve in this trial, and thier intentions and goals have nothing to do with justice, as the Times Online article points out:
    A defence application for the case to be dismissed for lack of evidence was rejected by Judge Marcia Cooke, who said it would be up to the 12 federal jurors to decide on the prosecution's claims.

    Yet Cooke had earlier told prosecutors that their original indictment was "very light on facts", and the case has begun to attract international attention for the problems the US government has faced in presenting a terrorist prosecution in a civilian court. An acquittal for Padilla, a 36-year-old Muslim convert, would further complicate Wash-ington's efforts to hold Al-Qaeda suspects without proper trials at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba.



    bush's support of terrorism (none / 0) (#18)
    by Sailor on Thu Aug 02, 2007 at 12:56:15 PM EST
    On April 24, 2003, a board member of Chiquita International Brands disclosed to a top official at the Justice Department that the king of the banana trade was evidently breaking the nation's anti-terrorism laws.

    Roderick M. Hills, who had sought the meeting with former law firm colleague Michael Chertoff, explained that Chiquita was paying "protection money" to a Colombian paramilitary group on the U.S. government's list of terrorist organizations. Hills said he knew that such payments were illegal, according to sources and court records, but said that he needed Chertoff's advice.
    [...]
    Chertoff, then assistant attorney general and now secretary of homeland security, affirmed that the payments were illegal but said to wait for more feedback, according to five sources familiar with the meeting.



    Huh? (none / 0) (#19)
    by Gabriel Malor on Fri Aug 03, 2007 at 03:31:50 AM EST
    I think it's possible you've confused George Bush with Michael Chertoff. Just, y'know, a possibility.

    Parent
    Just, y' know (5.00 / 0) (#20)
    by jondee on Fri Aug 03, 2007 at 06:44:10 PM EST
    a possibility Bush has some accountability in regards to the competence of his appointees.

    What do think, Gabriel?

    Parent