Deaf, Mentally Ill Man Tasered and Pepper Sprayed By Mobile Police

Alabama, Police, Taser
July 28, 2009

BY ASSOCIATED PRESS

MOBILE, Ala.—- Police in Mobile, Ala., used pepper spray and a Taser on a deaf, mentally disabled who they said wouldn’t leave a store’s bathroom.

The family of 37-year-old Antonio Love has filed a formal complaint over the incident on Friday.

Police tell the Press-Register of Mobile that officers shot pepper spray under the bathroom door after knocking several times. After forcing the door open, they used the stun gun on Love.

Police spokesman Christopher Levy says police didn’t realize Love had a hearing impairment until after he was out of the bathroom. The officers’ conduct is under investigation.

The newspaper says the officers attempted to book Love on charges including disorderly conduct, but a magistrate on duty wouldn’t accept the charges.

Bill Kristol 's Ego Tells Him to Go on Jon Stewart Again and We Are All Better For it

Bill Kristol, Blanche Lincoln, Chuck Grassley, Daily Show, Eric Cantor, Health Care Reform, Jim DeMint, John Kyl, Max Baucus, Politics, Susan Collins

Note to Kristol:

Hire Publicist.

Fire Publicist.

jt

Rocking The Yoga Up In Tahoe

Wanderlust, Williamsburg, Yoga
July 28, 2009

New York Times

By MELENA RYZIK

LAKE TAHOE, Calif. — Beneath a starry sky here on Friday, on a stage underneath a ski lift, Sharon Jones, the powerhouse singer of the funk-soul band the Dap-Kings, was nearly ready to perform. “What I need to do now,” she told the audience, “is loosen my body up, get the blood flowing.”

She had come to the right place. The next afternoon the same stage — and the same quest — was taken up by Shiva Rea, a powerhouse yoga teacher. Accompanied by a live band, she led a class in flowing poses, encouraging many of the same people who had danced along with Ms. Jones to open their heart center and breathe.

The lithe-bodied audience had gathered here for Wanderlust, a new festival that blends indie rock and yoga. From Friday to Sunday, visitors could study self-massage and meditation early each morning and hear groups like Broken Social Scene, Girl Talk and Spoon at night.

The setting — the verdant hills of Squaw Valley, a ski resort, usually empty off-season — provided an almost surreally beautiful natural backdrop. All of the concerts and many of the yoga classes were held outdoors; the main stage for music was 8,200 feet up a mountain, reachable only by gondola. When they weren’t practicing vinyasa poses or singing along to Gillian Welch, festivalgoers in stretchy outfits could shop for recycled clothing or snack on organic melon in a village-style marketplace.

Continue reading →

Glenn Greenwald Waterboards Chuckie Todd

Chuck Todd, Glenn Greenwald, NBC, Salon, Torture, White House Press Corpse, Wiretapping

S A L O N

Glenn Greenwald


roveyYesterday, I voiced several criticisms of comments made earlier this week by NBC News Political Director Chuck Todd regarding potential torture investigations by the Obama Justice Department.  Shortly thereafter, he emailed me to say that he wished I had contacted him before posting.  In response, I invited him to participate in a podcast discussion with me of the issues raised by his remarks and my analysis of them, and, to his credit, he accepted.

This morning, I spoke with Todd for roughly 30 minutes about the relative significance of torture investigations, the implications of failing to prosecute high-level political officials when they break the law, the role of the media in these matters, and whether Todd was expressing his own views or merely repeating what the White House believes (the polling data I reference, along with the media’s routine distortion of it, is documented here and here).  The discussion can be heard by clicking PLAY on the recorder below (it can be also downloaded by MP3 here or by ITunes here).  A transcript will be posted later today.

UPDATE:  The transcript is now available here.

Raw Story: Congressman John Conyers Calls For Investigation of Bush Abuses

Bush Administration Crimes, Cheney, Conyers

Raw Story

Daniel Tencer

conyersThe chairman of the House Judiciary Committee has called for both a criminal investigation and a blue-ribbon panel to look into “Bush administration abuses of power and misconduct.”

Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) told the National Press Club Friday that both avenues should be pursued because a criminal investigation would be done in private, while a blue-ribbon “9/11-type” panel would work publicly and would create a public record of the Bush administration’s actions.

Conyers also slammed former Bush administration officials who are refusing to testify before the judiciary committee. He rejected the notion that “executive privilege” prevents Bush White House officials from answering questions before Congressional committees.

“Wait a minute,” he said, “you don’t know what questions we’re going to ask.”

“If we ask a question that you think can’t be answered, we can set it aside … but the blanket [notion that] anybody near the White House doesn’t have to come to a hearing, that wouldn’t wash at my son’s freshman class at Moorhouse College in Atlanta much less with me.”

“Congress’s role has been diminished as the President’s executive role has increased,” Conyers warned, adding that his committee is “in the process of enforcing” subpoenas against Bush-era White House counsel Harriet Myers and former Chief of Staff Josh Bolton.

Earlier this month, news reports indicated that Attorney-General Eric Holder is considering appointing a special prosecutor to investigate Bush-era misconduct.

Video of Conyers’ comments to the National Press Club can be found here.

— Daniel Tencer

Felipe Massa Seriously Hurt in Formula One Crash

Auto Racing, Formula One
Massa Injure Bad
July 27, 2009

Ferrari’s Massa Stable After Surgery on Skull

By BRAD SPURGEON

BUDAPEST — Felipe Massa, a Brazilian driver who finished second in the Formula One series last year, was in stable condition Sunday after surgery for a skull fracture, his Ferrari team said.

The Brazilian was injured Saturday in a qualifying session for the Hungarian Grand Prix when a spring from another driver’s car struck his head while he was driving at more than 250 kilometers, or 156 miles, an hour.

Massa, 28, was taken to the AEK Hospital in Budapest by helicopter, where he was found to have suffered damage to his skull and a concussion. Although he was conscious upon arrival at the hospital, doctors placed him in an artificial coma and operated to repair the bone.

“Massa’s condition remains stable and there were no further complications through the night,” the Ferrari team said in a statement Sunday. “He will be given another CT scan today.”

The accident happened less than a week after Henry Surtees, 18, a Formula 2 driver and son of a former world champion for Ferrari, John Surtees, was killed at a race in England when a wheel that had come off another car struck him in the head, killing him.

Formula One officials said that they would look into whether any further safety measures may be taken, like putting canopies over the drivers’ heads.

Massa’s accident occurred during the second part of the qualifying session. His onboard television camera showed the car going down the track at speed, then straight off into a tire wall, where Massa remained motionless.

In slow motion, the footage showed a wheel spring that had come off the Brawn car of Rubens Barrichello, another Brazilian driver, had bounced down the track and hit the front of Massa’s car before smashing into his helmet. The Brawn car was about four seconds ahead of Massa’s Ferrari at the time.

Ross Brawn, the owner and director of the team, said the spring weighed about 700 to 800 grams, or about 1.5 pounds. He said the team would look into why it had come off.

Formula One cars have open cockpits, which leave the drivers’ heads exposed. The last death of a driver in a race was that of another Brazilian, Ayrton Senna, at Imola in 1994. He was struck in the head by part of his own car’s front suspension during an accident.

Formula One later raised the height of the car body around the drivers’ heads, but the front and top of the helmet remain exposed.

Brawn found a positive element, saying he thought Massa had survived largely because of advances in helmet technology. The front of the top part of Massa’s helmet was damaged, but the whole structure remained intact.

Massa began racing in Formula One in 2002 with Sauber. He joined Ferrari in 2006. Last year he was edged out of the title by Lewis Hamilton in the final race.

We are the most powerful nation in the world. There is no excuse, only corruption.

Alberto Gonzales, Albritton Communications, Ari Fleisher, Baker Botts, Barack Obama, Beck, Brewster Jennings, Brit Hume, Broadcatching, Broder, Carlyle Group, Childhood Literacy, CIA, D.C., David Frum, David Gregory, David Ignatius, Dick Cheney, Eisenhower, Executive Power, George Stephanapoulos, George W. Bush, Halliburton, Health Care, Housing, Hunger, Infant Mortality, Iran, Iraq, John Harris, Justice Department, K Street, Karl Rove, KBR, Kellogg Brown Root, Krauthammer, Kristol, Limbaugh, Lobbyists, Meet The Press, Michael Gerson, Michael Wolff, Military Industrial Complex, Neocons, New York Times, O'Reilly, Pentagon, Politico, Ronald Reagan, Scooter Libby, Think-Tanks, Tim Russert, Torture, Valerie Plame, Vanity Fair, Washington Post, Will, Wiretapping

We are the most powerful nation in the world. There is no excuse, only corruption.

The Newly Released Secret Laws of the Bush Administration

administration, Bush, Greenwald, Justice Department, laws, Military, Salon, secret
Tuesday March 3, 2009 06:31 EST

The newly released secret laws of the Bush administration

(updated below – Update II – Update III)

Reviewing yesterday’s front page of the print edition of The New York Times prompted this observation from Digby:

I looked at the front page of the paper this morning and wondered for a moment if I was looking at one of those historical documents about which scholars would wonder if those who read it in real time had a clue about the scale of what was happening.

There’s a run on the banks in Ukraine, the world’s biggest insurer suffered the highest quarterly losses in corporate history, Europe is starting to come apart — with Germany being the lead player. Major change seems to be rumbling in a bunch of different ways right now — with echoes of the past overlaid with things we’ve never seen before. Maybe it’s just a blip.  But maybe not.

Various universal perception biases always make it difficult to assess how genuinely consequential contemporary events are:  events in the present always seem more important than ones in the past; those that affect us directly appear more significant than those that are abstract, etc. (though powers of denial — e.g.: all of those bad things I’ve read about in history can’t happen to me and my country and my time — undercut those biases).  Whatever else is true, it seems undeniably clear, at the very least, that the extreme decay and instabilities left in the wake of the Bush presidency will alter many aspects of the social order in radical and irrevocable (albeit presently unknowable) ways.

One of the central facts that we, collectively, have not yet come to terms with is how extremist and radical were the people running the country for the last eight years.  That condition, by itself, made it virtually inevitable that the resulting damage would be severe and fundamental, even irreversible in some sense.  It’s just not possible to have a rotting, bloated, deeply corrupt and completely insular political ruling class — operating behind impenetrable walls of secrecy — and avoid the devastation that is now becoming so manifest.  It’s just a matter of basic cause and effect.

Yet those who have spent the last several years pointing out how unprecedentedly extremist and radical was our political leadership (and how meek and complicit were our other key institutions) were invariably dismissed as shrill hysterics.  As but one of countless highly illustrative examples, here is a November, 2004 David Broder column scoffing at the notion that there was anything radical or unusual taking place in the U.S., dismissively deriding the claim that there was anything resembling an erosion of basic checks and safeguards in the United States:

Bush won, but he will have to work within the system for whatever he gets. Checks and balances are still there. The nation does not face “another dark age,” unless you consider politics with all its tradeoffs and bargaining a black art.

That was (and still is) the prevailing attitude among our political and media elites:  it was those who were sounding alarm bells about the radicalism and damage of the Bush administration — not Bush officials themselves — who were the real radicals and, worst of all, were deeply Unserious.

* * * * *

Continue reading →

On a Plane Ride Home From Paris Sitting Next to a Douchebag With an Ed Hardy Shirt Reading Glenn Beck's Book

Alberto Gonzales, Albritton Communications, Ari Fleisher, Baker Botts, Barack Obama, Beck, Brewster Jennings, Brit Hume, Broadcatching, Broder, Carlyle Group, Childhood Literacy, CIA, D.C., David Brooks, David Frum, David Gregory, David Ignatius, Dick Cheney, Duct Tape, Eisenhower, Executive Power, George Stephanapoulos, George Stephanopoulos, George W. Bush, George Will, Haditha, Halliburton, Health Care, Housing, Hunger, Infant Mortality, Iran, Iraq

TEEVEE1

1441!

by John Tully
The New York Herald Sun
July 26, 2009


Whether it was Michael Wolff’s “piece” in Vanity Fair on Politico or the Paris tap water that produced the explosive diarrhea on a hot sweaty July night in the City of Lights, we’ll never know…

Time moves both slow and fast in these Dog Days of Summer and the memory hole of the past eight bloody years is fading and digging deeper.

I take you back to the city of D.C.

A few years ago…
A quaint city, soon to written about like Rome, gilded on their own lily and pathetic to boot.

Sucked in to television, watching the camera moves, editing, and heavy music to a story about a mom and a dad and a wife who lose their little/big man to a fiery explosion in Iraq. The soldier leaves a “just in case” final video for his bride, tells her of his deep love, and urges her to go on with life: “get married, have kids”  It’s a noble gesture from a brave young man and the camera cuts to the weeping widow watching the tape.

The evening news comes on and the 80 year-old man who marched against Iraq in a February freeze watches a report on two dead Marines and 17 Iraqi dead civilians . Remember seeing that look on the face of the Marines’ mother or the site of yet another widow with two babies that finally punches the gut.

At this point in the war,  President Bush hadn’t been to one funeral service for them.

Remember.

Remember banned television cameras at the arrival of the bodies from Germany, at the base in Delaware .

The cowering, obedient press corpse giving the President a free pass after 9/11 and the Administration using it to make the United States less safe, less secure, and spoil environmental and geopolitical progress for years to come.

Remembering Television and Freedom Fries and Terror Alerts here in Paris 6  years later, the mind once again boggles and crunches the serious, sad, mistaken war of choice that ignored all plans and warnings of consequences.

Powered by arrogance and breathtaking hubris and television’s Meet The Press and This Week With Will for the latest talking points of the day.

MR. RUSSERT: All right, this way: Should the blogs, talk radio, cable TV—should people lower their voices, and, and, and control their rhetoric?

Remember that very same week when the Vice-President poked a fat finger in the eye of Russia while the Bush Administration reflexively rejected the first written communication from Iran in seventeen years. Neither Vice President Cheney’s speech or the letter was ever mentioned on either program.

Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney had blown the cover of longtime C.I.A. agent Valerie Plame who it turns out was working on nuclear proliferation. Her contacts through front company Brewster Jennings were actively working the underground nukes world. That intel might have been helpful that very same week in dealing with Iran.

Instead, the latest Cool-Kids Media Club Memes emerged: “Anger on the Blogs”

That’s right. Three different allusions to blogs and anger on both Meet The Press and This Week complete with an obligatory question from Tim Russert to new/old ham Newt Gingrich.

Schmuck David Brooks, perpetual mealy-mouthed defender of the Bush administration throwing out his  shoulder shrugging off the incident at Haditha in front of two shocked Marines: Mark Shields and Jim Lehrer.

Remember when columnist Tony Blankley said the war protests were organized by the communist party and the Press corps labeled Al Gore as Crazy for his pre-war criticism about invading Iraq.
How about when war hero Max Cleland was derisively compared to both Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein in a television advertisement by his republican opponent, Saxby Chambliss during their Senate race? Mr. Cleland lost his legs and an arm during Vietnam but the republican claimed the democrat was soft on National Security. Mr. Chambliss sat out the war with a bad knee.

Go back in time and recall when Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz had no idea how many Americans had been killed in Iraq and called the idea of two hundred thousand troops needed in Iraq as  “wildly off the mark”

It’s apparent that there Was Not a massive intelligence failure and the administration indeed was warned about the vagueness of the information about Iraq.

Remember that classic “Everybody thought-even-France and Germany” song about W.M.D.’s.
The Memory-Hole pieces together the events of the past six years but can never illuminate fully how one of the most brilliant countries in history could now be cowardly defending war atrocities and blaming, as Mr. Blankley said that very same week about the incident at Haditha: “Over reporting by a gleeful media is more damaging than any single fact”

Come to think of it-maybe that gleeful, fluffy, Politico piece that completely failed to mention the publication’s Reagan connection was responsible for that gut bomb the other night.

Either way, I’m still sick as a dog.

JT

Paris, France

Add to FacebookAdd to DiggAdd to Del.icio.usAdd to StumbleuponAdd to RedditAdd to BlinklistAdd to TwitterAdd to TechnoratiAdd to FurlAdd to Newsvine

Protesters, Officers Clash Violently In Iran's Streets

Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, Tehran

Street Protests Continue in Downtown Tehran

47615515

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Over 1,000 demonstrators gather in Tehran, continuing to protest the June 12 presidential election. Security forces fire tear gas and beat protesters. Many people wear masks to hide their identities.

By Ramin Mostaghim and Borzou Daragahi

8:05 AM PDT, July 9, 2009

Reporting from Tehran and Beirut — Violent clashes erupted today in downtown Tehran between more than a thousand determined young men and women chanting, “Death to the dictator” and “God is great” and security forces wielding truncheons.

The screams of a woman being beaten could be heard from nearby buildings, a witness said. Business owners could be seen hustling protesters into their buildings to shield them from plainclothes officers and anti-riot police who fired tear gas canisters.

Passing drivers and motorcyclists honked their horns and flashed the “V” sign in support of the clumps of demonstrators. At least one trash bin was set afire, a witness said, sending a plume of black smoke rising as dusk approached.

Many of the demonstrators wore surgical masks to protect their identities from cameras stationed at adjacent buildings. They could be seen escaping into side streets and regrouping as shops quickly were shuttered.

Some witnesses said pro-government Basiji militiamen also could be seen wearing masks to hide their faces from digital cameras.

Protesters chanted in support of Mir-Hossein Mousavi, who was defeated by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in disputed elections last month, and urged the security forces to join them.

Uniformed security forces on motorcycles wearing black helmets and plainclothes officers had blocked off streets around Revolution Square, near the Tehran University epicenter of the protest. The Basiji militiamen could be seen fanning out throughout side streets to block demonstrators trying to flee. Armored police vans to haul away protesters could be seen parked along the roadways.

But as the militiamen tried to drag away demonstrators, one witness said, protesters joined together to overpower them and rescue their comrades. The witness also said he saw some women with their headscarves pulled off being forced into police vans. Another woman taking pictures with her cellphone camera was dragged away.

Despite the lack of formal organization and leadership, thousands of people in cities across Iran were determined to march today in unauthorized demonstrations to show their discontent over Ahmadinejad’s reelection and to commemorate the 10th anniversary of a violent confrontation between students and security forces.

Tehran Gov. Gen. Morteza Tamaddon said earlier today that any protesters would receive a “crushing” response, and security forces appeared to be responding brutally at times to the attempt at a public demonstration. One witness described how five Basiji militiamen pummeled an elderly lady who loudly warned them that they would receive their comeuppance on Judgment Day.

Tammadon said, “The enemies of the Iranian nation are angry with the postelection calm in Iran and try to damage it through their TV channels.”

Ahmadinejad’s June 12 reelection, marred by opposition allegations of massive vote-rigging, has created the biggest political rift within the nation since the first years after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. A movement built on Mousavi’s campaign continues to challenge authorities, who have attempted to crush dissent by beating and jailing demonstrators.

The Guardian Council, which oversaw the vote and a limited recount, announced Wednesday that it would publish an 80-page report addressing complaints about the election to submit to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the Iranian people, according to the pro-government Fars news agency.

Iranian hard-line cleric Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami publicly denied reports that some clergy were gathering signatures to remove or reduce the power of Khamenei, according to Fars, an unusual comment that some analysts said only served to heighten rumors that such a move was afoot.

The Assembly of Experts, which oversees the office of the supreme leader, is led by Khamenei’s rival, Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, within Iran’s unique political system, which grants the clergy absolute rule under a theological concept known as Velayat Faqih, or the guardianship of jurisprudence.

“I reassure the great Iranian nation that the Assembly of Experts will protect Velayat Faqih and will carry out its duty, which is safeguarding Velayat Faqih,” said Khatami.

daragahi@latimes.com

Mostaghim is a special correspondent.