AP getting ready for Britney's death, just in case

From Attytood:

The Associated Press began preparing Britney Spears’ obituary within the past month, Usmagazine.com has learned.

"We are not wishing it, but if Britney passed away, it’s easily one of the biggest stories in a long time," AP entertainment editor Jesse Washington tells Us.

Certainly puts Iraq to shame. Read the rest of this post...

Bloggers Push China to Prosecute Beating Death

In China. Wow. Now that takes guts.

More than 100 people are under investigation and several government officials have been detained or removed from office in central China after a dispute in early January in which a group of city officials beat a bystander to death.

The government investigation, which was reported by state-run news outlets here, was touched off by bloggers in China who were outraged that a 41-year-old man had been fatally beaten while trying to use his cellphone to photograph a dispute between villagers and city inspectors....

“It is definitely not the first time for something like this,” said a blogger on the popular Chinese Web site Sina.com. “What makes it news is that this time they got one man dead, the news got online, and the whole nation got informed. So they got serious.”

Read the rest of this post...

Bringing new meaning to 'man on the street'

Major hat tip to reader Laura. And for those who don't recall who Jeff Gannon is, I'm going to post the link to my original story from three years ago. And, as always, I have to add one big caveat - this link is not work-safe, not even close, as the post contains nudity and is about a mature subject matter, as they say. You've been warned. Here's the link. (And, as an aside, some of the original photos in the original post got deleted when Blogger upgraded a while back - I've now added them back. Read the rest of this post...

Romney and staff lose cool with AP reporter during interview

Very slippery interview Romney did with a bunch of reporters in South Carolina in which he told them that he doesn't have lobbyists running his campaign. An AP reporter then named a lobbyist who was even in meetings helping prepare Romney for the debates. Romney then gets huffy and says that the lobbyist isn't his campaign manager, so that means he doesn't "run" his campaign. Uh ok. So Romney has lobbyists running his campaign, they just don't "run" his campaign. This is slippery as hell of Romney. But perhaps the best part is at the end where Romney's staff scolds the AP reporter for being "argumentative with the candidate." First off, "the candidate"? What is he, God now? We can't call him Mitt or Romney - no, it's "the candidate." Secondly, don't get argumentative? Uh, reporters are now not allowed to challenge presidential candidates on their lies? Maybe it's a Mormon thing.

TIME explains Romney's lie:

Republican Mitt Romney said Thursday he could govern in the country's best interest because ''I don't have lobbyists running my campaign,'' although Washington insiders are on his senior staff and registered lobbyists are top advisers.

One of them, Ron Kaufman, chairman of the Washington-based Dutko Group, regularly sits across the aisle from Romney on his campaign plane, participates in debate strategy sessions and just last week accompanied Romney to a lunch in Myrtle Beach with Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C.

Another adviser, former Rep. Vin Weber, R-Minn., is chairman of Romney's policy committee. He also is chief executive officer of Clark & Weinstock, and his corporate biography says he ''provides strategic advice to institutions with matters before the legislative and executive branches of the federal government.''

Read the rest of this post...

Muslim athlete disqualified over uniform

Wow. Fascinating issue. So which is it? Violation of religious freedom? Or kid cheating at track? And while the religious right will get upset about this (they hate Muslims, well they hate Catholics too, but that's for another day), all this girl is doing is what the religious right has so dutifully taught her. Call everything you do a religious choice and no one can touch you. The religious right tries to justify firing gay people from their jobs because an employer's bigotry is their "religious freedom" (apparently the Bible says something about firing otherwise qualified gay people from their jobs). Having said all of that, in this case, I think the kid has a point - read the article, it sounds like they're kind of intent on giving her a hard time. Read the rest of this post...

Stock market drops 307 points

Bush is back in the country and today announced he ready to guide the economy. Meanwhile, the stock market had a huge drop today. Just huge:

Stocks dropped sharply on Thursday as a plunge in regional factory activity and a hefty loss at Merrill Lynch further clouded an increasingly dire view of the economy.

The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI was down 307.03 points, or 2.46 percent, to end unofficially at 12,159.13.

Yesterday, we learned that food prices had their largest rise since 1990 (back when the other Bush was President):

Inflation truly hit home in 2007 with food prices rising 4.9 percent, the most since 1990, as energy costs for farmers surged and the production of crops, livestock and dairy products failed to keep pace with increased global demand.

Aren't you comforted to know that Bush is finally admitted the economy is in trouble -- and that he's going to fix it? We're so screwed.

This happened on Bush's watch. He'll try, but he can't blame anyone else. Read the rest of this post...

Take our first-ever Presidential Straw Poll

You may have noticed in the past few days I've made a few changes to the blog. They include:

1. The ability to rate each of our posts from 1 star to 5 stars (based on how good and important a story you think each post is - i.e., would you recommend others read this particular post).

2. You'll also now find a box listing the Top Rated posts (based on your votes) and Hot posts (i.e., the ones with the most votes - I may get rid of this Hot list eventually, I'm not sure there's much of a value added over the Top Rated list) in a new box in the upper right hand corner of the blog.

3. I've also added a new 4th column to the blog (we had 3 columns before), which enables me to make the Popular Post box twice as wide. At this point, we're not really adding any additional content to the site besides that and what I describe in point 4 below. But with 94% of our readers having computer screens that have a width of 1024 pixels or greater, it was time to make the blog larger than 800 pixes (you'll note that newspaper sites like the NYT, took advantage of this extra space long ago).

4. Polls. We now have the ability to offer you polls in a nice neat package that doesn't include ads and other garbage. You'll find the current poll right below the Popular Posts box in the far-right column. Our first poll is, not surprisingly, who you're going to vote for come November (sorry, I left off the Republicans). Please join in and vote. You can only see the results if you vote (thereafter all you'll see is the results each time you refresh the page).

The reasons for the changes are varied. First off, you're getting a glimpse of AMERICAblog 2.0, the relaunch of the blog that will be coming in several months. In designing the new blog, it's given me a number of ideas, such as adding the extra column, having the wider box in the upper right corner for Popular Post, but also we could use it for fundraising for candidates and other things. We'll have all of that in the new site, but I figured why not add some of that now. As for AMERICAblog 2.0, I've hired a project manager (who is also our chief html/design guru), and she and I are now holding weekly calls with the database guy I've hired to build the guts of the site. Both of these folks are doing side work involving the elections, so in order to cut down on our costs, I've agreed to let them work at their own pace, rather than make this a rush job. That means we won't be launching for several months, but it also means we can stay within budget and do this right. Anyway, that's the update on that, but as I said, I wanted to start sharing some of the spoils of the new site with you now. Oh, and finally, either Blogger or Haloscan (or commenting service) have been painfully slow the last couple of days. I know, it bugs me too, and there's nothing I can do about it. You may have noticed that a few of your other favorite blogs hosted on Blogger and using Haloscan are also loading slowly. Thanks, JOHN Read the rest of this post...

Federal Judge upholds at-large caucuses in Nevada

CNN just reported that a federal judge just issued a ruling in the case challenging the rules allowing at large caucuses in Nevada this weekend. The judge ruled that those caucuses can proceed. You can read my background post explaining this issue here.

More later.From Reuters:

A federal judge on Thursday allowed Nevada's Democratic Party to conduct voting to choose a U.S. presidential nominee in casino hotels on the Las Vegas Strip, a decision likely to boost Sen. Barack Obama.

For the first time, Nevada Democrats planned to set up nine locations for Saturday's vote so casino shift workers -- who are largely represented by a union that endorsed Obama -- could express their preference for a Democratic Party candidate before the November presidential election.

A teachers' group filed a lawsuit saying the exception for the casino workers' vote was unfair, but Judge James Mahan of the U.S. District Court for Nevada disagreed and declined to issue a temporary injunction.

Bill Clinton weighs in:

Read the rest of this post...

Bush 'legacy' tour in Middle East reviews are in

Let's just say the reviews are about as positive as they have ever been in the region. That reminds me...no news on the Saudi blogger being imprisoned.

Seldom has an American President's visit left the region so underwhelmed, confirming Bush's huge unpopularity on the street and his sagging credibility among Arab leaders he counts as allies. Part of the problem was the Administration's increasingly mixed message, amplified by the intense media coverage of his trip. For example, in Dubai he gave what the White House billed as a landmark speech calling for "democratic freedom in the Middle East." But during his last stop in Sharm el-Sheikh Wednesday, he lauded President Hosni Mubarak as an experienced, valued strategic partner for regional peace and security and made no mention of Cairo's ongoing crackdown on opponents and critics - and the continuing imprisonment of Mubarak's main opponent in the 2005 presidential election.

Read the rest of this post...

A different kind of 'expert'

I really try to ascribe a general level of basic intelligence to foreign policy observers with whom I disagree; mostly I prefer to believe that people who do this stuff for a living are serious about having the right base-line information but come to the wrong conclusions because of poor analytical thinking, the wrong lessons from history, or even plain old ideological predispositions. But increasingly I have to face the fact that some "experts," widely respected, cited, and published, are completely and totally talking out of their ass on topics they claim to know thoroughly.

Norman Podhoretz is a former senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, the editor-at-large of Commentary Magazine, and, Lord help us all, the recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honor the US president can bestow upon a civilian. As a leading neoconservative, he was instrumental in pushing for the war in Iraq, and is currently the loudest voice for bombing Iran.

And according to a recent article, here's what he had to say after a talk on Kurdistan by Jeffrey Goldberg in 2003, right before "Mission Accomplished": "What's a Kurd, anyway?" Goldberg reports that "Podhoretz seemed authentically bewildered." You couldn't make this stuff up. Read the rest of this post...

Huckabestiality

Any surprise that the man who comes from a religion that thinks Catholics worship Satan (and that Catholics aren't even Christians), now says that gay relationships are like men having sex with animals.

QUESTIONER: Is it your goal to bring the Constitution into strict conformity with the Bible? Some people would consider that a kind of dangerous undertaking, particularly given the variety of biblical interpretations.

HUCKABEE: Well, I don’t think that’s a radical view to say we’re going to affirm marriage. I think the radical view is to say that we’re going to change the definition of marriage so that it can mean two men, two women, a man and three women, a man and a child, a man and animal. Again, once we change the definition, the door is open to change it again. I think the radical position is to make a change in what’s been historic.

Just as troubling, he gave this answer in the context of his larger stated goal of bringing the US Constitution in line with the Bible. And let's not forget, we're not talking your and my Bible - we're talking the Baptist Bible, which doesn't really see a role for any other Christians other than Baptists (let alone non-Christians). And this guy thinks it's fair game to talk about Romney's Mormonism? Fine, then let's have the media start talking about Huckabee's fringe views on Christianity. Read the rest of this post...

Opium farms spread across Iraq

Remember when stopping opium production in Afghanistan was one of the numerous talking points? That didn't work out very well in Afghanistan and now it's moving into Iraq.

The speed with which farmers are turning to poppies is confirmed by the Iraqi news agency al-Malaf Press, which says that opium is now being produced around the towns of Khalis, Sa'adiya, Dain'ya and south of Baladruz, pointing out that these are all areas where al-Qa'ida is strong....

The growing and smuggling of opium will be difficult to stop in Iraq because much of the country is controlled by criminalised militias. American successes in Iraq over the past year have been largely through encouraging the development of a 70,000-strong Sunni Arab militia, many of whose members are former insurgents linked to protection rackets, kidnapping and crime. Muqtada al-Sadr, the leader of the powerful Shia militia, the Mehdi Army, says that criminals have infiltrated its ranks.

Read the rest of this post...

CNBC asks: Where is the SEC?

Absolutely. The problem is that Bush has destroyed our government institutions and turned them into extensions of business across the board. Read the full exchange and watch the video because there are so many excellent points raised. Whatever you think of Jim Cramer he nails it today. If your blood isn't boiling by the end of the video, see a doctor because you just might be dead.

"I think the financial guys all belong to the same club and they got to protect each other," he said.

Worse, those executives behind the current credit crunch are unlikely to get any punishment for their mistakes and disingeniousness about their numbers, Cramer opined.

"I'm fed up with it. The American people should be fed up with it. And the SEC should be fed up with it," Cramer said.

"This is what the SEC is supposed to protect us from," he added.

Read the rest of this post...

Q4 banking numbers point towards growing economic crisis

Billions are wiped off the books and all we get is Greenspan giving excuses, Bush talking about the fundamentally strong economy and Wall Street executives leaving with millions. It's true that profits never should have been so high before because they were all based on garbage, though everyone profited handsomely from those numbers. Now, nobody takes any blame unless you want to call the platinum parachutes blame. Accountability has never been so far away.

Merrill Lynch - $10 billion loss in Q4
Bank of NY - Q4 profit drops 68%
PNC Financial - Profits down 53%
JP Morgan - 24% decline in profits
Wells Fargo - down 38%
US Bancorp - 21% decline
Citigroup - $10 billion loss

Read the rest of this post...

GOP's combined failings reaching 'maximum toxicity'

Who to believe? On the one hand, Karl Rove was out yesterday spinning how Republicans are going to win this year. On the other hand, the Politico provide its report on the GOP's pervasive "funk" and how the party's failings are approaching "maximum toxicity". Seems every major news outlet has been writing some variation of the theme that the GOP is a mess these days. Rove can spin all he wants. That the Republican Party is demoralized and imploding is the legacy of Rove and his boss, George Bush. There's much more after the break.

These articles are really fun to read. But, I'd rather be reading them in October -- and the way things are going, we just might be:

Ten months before Election Day, Republicans are facing a threat that spells serious trouble for GOP candidates from the top of the ticket down to the most obscure races. The problem is the funk of the foot soldiers.

So far, the story of the 2008 campaign on the Republican side is what’s not happening.

Ambitious Republican politicians at the state and local levels are not deciding that this is the year to make a bid for higher office.

Republican contributors are not opening their wallets and writing campaign checks.

Most striking of all, Republican voters are not heading to the polls to vote in the GOP primaries in anything like participation rates of early years.

Most of these trends have been noted and amply commented upon in isolation. It is in combination, however, that their effects tend to reinforce each other and reach maximum toxicity. A disgruntled base is the root cause of weak fundraising, which contributes to poor candidate recruitment, which in turn leads to GOP activists staying on the sofa rather than heading to the polls.

Read the rest of this post...

Thursday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

Seems even George Bush has clued into the fact that the economy is tanking. Wasn't too long ago, December 29, 2007 to be exact, that he was singing the praises of the economy that he helped create. Less than a month ago, Bush told us "the fundamentals of our economy are strong." Not anymore. Bush is back from this trip to the Middle East and he's going to tackle the economy, which, given his success rate, means we're really screwed.

Also, why, why, why does the traditional media drool over stories about the British Royal Family? Why is that considered news? Who cares? If the British want to waste their money on some archaic system, let them. But, we shouldn't be subjected to it. It's ridiculous.

Start threading. Read the rest of this post...

Big Pharma influencing doctors more than medical advisers

This becomes an even larger problem when the FDA and other governmental organizations approve drugs too easily thanks to heavy influence from the pharmaceutical industry. It's true that Big Pharma can provide benefits but it all seems to be completely out of control at this point. It should make us all uncomfortable that the industry carries so much sway with doctors, patients and government approval. Let them prove their worth with science, not cash. This study is from the UK, but could just as easily be in the US, Canada or Europe.

GPs should be made to declare the gifts they receive from drug firms, following revelations that one in five is more influenced by drug reps than official advisers when prescribing, MPs say today.

Do we ask doctors to publish the "gifts" they receive from the industry? Do we ask Big Pharma to publish this? Doctors should not be extensions of Big Pharma and if they continue like this, they are going to continue to lose credibility with patients. This is a deadly serious problem that needs to be reviewed. Read the rest of this post...

Middle class squeeze - perception or reality?

Republicans can talk all they want about how the economy grew in recent years, which is documented and true. However, this completely misses the point that for middle class Americans, the growth has been nonexistent. Growth has been for the select few such as Wall Street traders, corporate executives and the richest Americans. For everyone else, purchasing power is in decline. Paychecks have actually declined when inflation is taken into consideration and with high energy prices, that's not going to change overnight.

Workers in the 1970s had much more purchasing power compared to workers today. They also had better benefits such as health care, corporate pension plans not to mention much greater job security. (Baby Boomers who so often criticize young workers ought to think about this the next time they attack the work attitudes of this group. Asking for new employee-employer dynamics is a good thing.) With all of this in decline, it's no wonder there is so much anxiety and stress. Americans watch the CEO high fliers strut around like kings despite evidence that shows they incompetent failures, but even when they fall, they fall with millions of dollars in their pockets. How else is the middle class supposed to feel watching this on the nightly news? Perception is reality in this case. Read the rest of this post...