Waimanalo Blues

It’s a lot of pressure to put on Israel, to give meaning to Glenn Beck’s life. I sort of feel like ordinary Israelis have it rough enough, without this nutmeat descending thither and bringing his be-visored hordes of pasty followers to put out their cigarettes in ancient ruins and ask how much everything is in dollars. It seems kind of unfair.

The move is in response to increasing media scrutiny over the horrific way New York City has been enforcing “public possession” marijuana laws. The enforcement has been extremely racially biased, with almost all those arrest being black or Latino. Even worse, reporting by WNYC showed how the NYPD has been tricking people into showing their marijuana, violating people’s civil rights with illegal searches, and lying in official reports to claim the marijuana they found hidden on a person was in “public view,” so it would carry a higher penalty.

Paul Ryan gave his big speech in Chicago today, desperately trying to reset the debate over his flailing plan for Medicare privatization. And he can pretty up the rhetoric as much as he wants, but in the end, it remains a program to get rid of Medicare.

The Academy-Award nominated, Sundance Grand Jury-winning Restrepo is a story of war, loss, tragedy and bravery which resonates even more loudly with the death of co-director Tim Hetherington, who was killed during a mortar attack in Libya while reporting there. Hetherington had been scheduled as our guest for tonight. His death is a great loss to his family and friends, and to journalism. We are honored to have author David Axe (War is Boring) with us tonight in his stead. Axe has spent much time on the battlefields in Afghanistan, and he’s been here before– hosting an FDL Book Salon with Hetherington’s co-director Sebastian Junger. Tonight we’ll discuss the film, the war in Afghanistan, and being an embedded journalist.

The for-profit insurance companies have unnecessarily raised premiums and deductibles so much that regular people are unable to afford actually using the coverage they have. And, at the same time, the insurance companies have the chutzpah to use the fact that people can’t afford to use their insurance to justify even bigger premium hikes.

Maybe the foreclosure crisis hasn’t been fully solved. But at least we have those consent orders on the top mortgage servicers. At least federal regulators will lay down the law and we’ll get to see those independent reviews of each mortgage company and the wrongful foreclosures they initiated. I mean, at least there will be some transparency and discovery, right? right?

It would be a big mistake to let the month go by without getting Republicans in the Senate on the record. Dean Heller, the new Senator from Nevada who already voted to end Medicare in the House, has every intention of doing it again. Scott Brown announced he would vote for the Ryan budget as well, and in all likelihood you can get Olympia Snowe and Richard Lugar to vote for it. So, virtually every marginally contestable seat on the Republican side will have GOP candidates who voted to end Medicare. And with so many more Democratic seats up for grabs, they’ll need to play offense somewhere to take off the pressure.

The Director of the CIA claims no credit for the two biggest intelligence leads that led to OBL (mind you, he oversaw that actual op to get OBL, so CIA did have a big role). While this letter doesn’t say it, McCain’s two statements (which I presume reflect further conversations with Panetta) reveal that the detainee who first discussed Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti was interrogated by another country.

If you’re like me, you believed that the Senate rules reform effort devolved into nothingness. Only a few things were accomplished on the periphery. . . or, not.