Buried in the story about Obama's Health-Care forum is this:

The president called randomly on three audience members. All turned out to be members of groups with close ties to his administration: the Service Employees International Union, Health Care for America Now, and Organizing for America, which is a part of the Democratic National Committee. White House officials said that was a coincidence.

Troll extraordinaire palin steele said we should try harder to say nice things about the president. So in that spirit, boy, that Obama's a lucky guy, isn't he?

Hey, remember when a plastic turkey held by a president was worth its own investigative news stories? Those were the days.

Posted by: Slublog at 06:16 AM | Add Comment
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Whoa. The hits keep on coming with Judge Sotomayor. We've already seen how her extrajudicial activities--speeches, papers, clubs--cast doubt on her ability to treat men and whites with the necessary impartiality to be a judge. There was also the sneaky way she disposed of the Ricci case. Ethics went out the door when her membership in a women-only group was discovered (something forbiden by the Code of Judicial Conduct).

And now it turns out that she advised a Puerto Rican advocacy group in the 1980s which opposed Judge Bork's nomination to the Supreme Court by labeling him a "threat" to the "civil rights of the Latino American community." And it doesn't stop there.

The revelation is included in 350 pages of documents the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund delivered to the senators late Tuesday evening.

Judge Sotomayor worked for PRLDEF in various capacities from 1980 until she became a federal judge in 1992, spending most of her time as a board member.

The documents, which the group's lawyers have said include relevant information about Judge Sotomayor's time there, also show the fund did legal work for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, known as ACORN. During the 2008 presidential election, ACORN came under fire after allegations of voter registration fraud.

Hmmm. If only the Republicans in Congress hadn't started on the wrong foot with her, there'd be some real momentum to have her nomination withdrawn. Instead, John Cornyn bravely led the Republicans on Senate Judiciary into hiding under his desk and then hired squish-professor Orin Kerr to contrive a reason why.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:56 AM | Add Comment
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We have the best politicians, media, and judges money can buy.

For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post is offering lobbyists and association executives off-the-record, nonconfrontational access to "those powerful few" — Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and the paper’s own reporters and editors.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 04:44 AM | Add Comment
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The anti-government forces got a shot in the arm today when former President Mohammad Khatami issued a statement attacking the government and its response to post-election protests.

Iran's former president has joined ranks with the country's embattled reformist presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, and accused the Iranian government of failing its people in the recent election and condemning the subsequent crackdown on protesters.

In a bold, lengthy statement Wednesday on his Web site, Mousavi said he considered Iran's cleric-led government illegitimate and demanded political prisoners be released, while saying Iran's government needs to institute electoral reforms and ensure press freedoms.

Former President Mohammad Khatami, meanwhile, lashed out at what he termed "a poisonous security situation" in the wake of violent street protests.

Khatami accused Iran's leadership of a "velvet coup against the people and democracy," and Mousavi said the government's crackdown on demonstrators was "tantamount to a coup."

Mousavi contends the June 12 election was marred by widespread fraud and insists he was robbed of victory. Khatami scorned the government for declaring incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the winner in a landslide.

Khatami has long been considered one of the leading reform movement and a "moderate" (though let's not pretend that's not grading on a huge curve from a US perspective).

The thugs on the streets seem to have done a good job preventing the mass protests we saw two weeks ago but the regime is obviously still fighting for its survival in the backrooms. In fact, right after the election Ahmadinejad felt comfortable jetting off to Russia but he has now canceled a planned trip to Libya. Could be unrelated (who really wants to visit with Khadafi?) or things are still touch and go at home.

I wonder what the President of the United States would like to see happen in Iran.

(Just to be clear, that last bit was rhetorical. I've been saying Obama's take on this from the start has been, "kill however many you have to to wrap this up so we can start talking")

Posted by: DrewM at 04:36 AM | Add Comment
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Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 04:29 AM | Comments (3)
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Oh God.

A U.S. soldier missing from his base in eastern Afghanistan since Tuesday is believed to have been captured by Taliban militants, the military said Thursday.

In a statement issued from U.S. military headquarters in Kabul, officials said "we are exhausting all available resources to ascertain his whereabouts and provide for his safe return."

...Military officials in Afghanistan, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the situation, said the missing soldier appears to have walked off his base into an unsecured area. It was not clear why he had apparently done so.

Let's pray this turns out better than seems likely it will.

Posted by: DrewM at 04:20 AM | Add Comment
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This came across after regular business hours yesterday so I thought I'd move it up. Feel free to pimp any other events, maybe last minute holiday meetups or if folks are going to tea parties.

Consider adding this Happy Hour event to your holiday weekend plans.

From the "USO Girls"

Join us for happy hour from 4pm - 7pm (this) Friday July 3rd, at the Tap In, on Main Street in Grapevine TX!

...Tap In has generously offered to donate a portion of the proceeds that evening to the foundation, plus there will be a silent auction too! I'm still working on getting Jamie to allow me to put her up for auction again...so far it's a no go.

Even if you can't make it, check out the Warrior Legacy Foundation

Now this even is more than a fundraiser and get together, it's a chance to meet some genuine blog celebrities. Uncle Jimbo of BlackFive and Ace of Spades fame and TSO from This Ain't Hell will be there.

There are also unconfirmed rumors that a certain "goober" we all know and love from here at the HQ may, I say again may, show up. I urge you to go anyway.

While this isn't an AoS only gathering, a good moron showing would be great news for the Foundation and I'm sure it will be a good time.

BTW-Before you make any predictable comments about the lovely ladies at USO Girls, my understanding is that at least two of the three are dating guys who know more ways to kill you than Obama can think of to tax you. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Posted by: DrewM at 04:05 AM | Comments (1)
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MFO.

This week the nation's largest employer blessed an employer mandate, aka "pay or play." This would require businesses that do not offer "meaningful coverage" -- i.e., government-approved -- to pay some percentage of their payroll to a federal insurance plan. This mandate is one of the more controversial policies in the Democratic health package, and Wal-Mart's endorsement will help it along, or at least give liberals political cover against business criticism.

The Boys from Bentonville are a little more interested in the cover it provides them against assaults from the Service Employees International Union and the United Food and Commercial Workers, both of which have been fighting like hell to organize Wal-Mart stores (and losing) for 10+ years.

Not to mention giving themselves another competitive advantage over smaller businesses who can't afford to do what they already do, which is pay workers above minimum wage and negotiate powerfully better rates for private health care insurance because of their f'n' ginormousness.

more...

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 07:01 PM | Add Comment
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(To our female readers/overlordesses, please allow me to address the troops one more time before we quit the field and schedule our manicures)

Men: ItÂ’s been an honor to serve alongside you in this futile and stupid cause, but now comes the time in which we need to face facts. The following is the message Central Command sent out to opposing forces this evening:

Now, under the terms we agreed to you will be able to retain a single multi-purpose tool, such as a Leatherman, provided it has 57 or fewer different functions. However, our opposition has signaled that any remaining opposition to their rule will be dealt with severely via “reeducation camps” which have been in place for some time in areas they’d already had control over. The few who escaped had mostly gone mad but some of the phrases we kept hearing again and again involved “figure skating” and “antiquing.” It was a mercy to them that we simply put a bullet through their heads in most cases.

A couple more examples of how we lost this war below the fold.
more...

Posted by: Open Blog at 05:46 PM | Comments (1)
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Nice work, Detective Dickbag.

The murder of 26-year-old protester Neda Soltan was staged, Iran's chief of police said Wednesday — a statement that rights groups and Iran watchers are calling a propagandistic lie.

...

Soltan's family and those with her at the time of her death said that members of the paramilitary Basij militia drove by on a motorcycle and shot her in an alley near a major protest in Tehran.

But, according to Iran's Press TV, police chief Esmaeil Ahmadi-Moqadam declared Wednesday that the shooting was a "prearranged scenario" — a "premeditated act of murder" that could not have been committed by Iranian police.

...

Moqadam led the investigation following an order from Ahmadinejad inquiring about the "suspicious" nature of the shooting. The Iranian president said even before the investigation that anti-government "elements" were behind the killing — presumably fingering either foreign agents or even the protesters themselves.

Iran analysts said the government's line was part of a "systematic lie" on which Iranian propaganda is based.

"They cannot deny [Soltan's killing] anymore, so they are trying to fabricate a scenario in which they are not accountable and Ahmadinejad now becomes someone who is seeking the truth," said Mehdi Khalaji, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

"The story has been completely changed upside-down," said Khalaji, who noted the 30-year-old regime's history of turning victims into violators. "The people who were oppressed — now they are accused of killing."

Obama's Partners in Peace.

Posted by: Ace at 02:50 PM | Add Comment
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