Democracy Now! (Marcia: "always worth watching")
Headlines for May 13, 2005
- 21 Killed in Latest Wave of Iraq Violence
- UN Says 24,000 Iraqis Died From War in a Year
- Suicide Bombings on the Rise in Iraq
- CARICOM Calls for Yvon Neptune's Release
- Bolton Moves to Full Senate With No Backing
- Bush Rode Bike While Capitol/White House Evacuated
- War Resister Paredes Gets 3 Months Hard labor
- New Charges Against War Resister Kevin Benderman
- Connecticut Carries Out First Execution in 45 Years
John Bolton Suffers Setback In Bid to Become UN Ambassador
In a rare move, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has sent the nomination of John Bolton as UN ambassador to the full Senate without an endorsement.
War Resister Pablo Paredes Wins Surprise Victory: Military Judges Orders No Jail Time For Refusing Deployment Orders
Paredes was convicted in a court-martial on Wednesday. However a judge decided Thursday not to sentence him to jail - instead he will face three months of hard labor.
Ousted Haitian PM Yvon Neptune Enters 25th Day of Hunger Strike
The Caribbean Community, known as CARICOM, has officially called on the provisional Haitian government to release Neptune immediately. Neptune is now reported to be very near death with a top UN official saying he can barely walk or talk and is in and out of consciousness.
Affordable Wireless Internet For All: How Media Activists Are Making Champaign-Urbana Illinois A Model For Community Wi-Fi
We speak with Sascha Meinrath, project coordinator of the Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless Network. Meinrath also volunteers with the Champaign-Urbana Indymedia Center which just bought a 30,000 square foot post office. [includes rush transcript]
It's hard to be Ann Coulter facing down the years, living a life that's so against everything's she's preached. After the shock of her own appearance on the cover of Time, she's apparently decided to attempt to take the head off herself by fire bombing someone else.
As with all of Coulter's firebombs, that means going after anyone who's told the truth and then distorting what they actually said. Fright Wing Annie turns her attention to Katrina vanden Heuvel but, as Liang notes, "KvH can handle herself:"
In her latest column, Ann Coulter honors me by announcing me the winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award for Most Wrong Predictions. I proudly accept this award for in Coulter's tangled, fictional world right is always wrong, and what liberals say is always wrong even when they are right.
To be more specific, Coulter accuses me of wrongly predicting that invading Iraq would lead to more terrorist retaliation. According to the recent US government report, the number of terrorist attacks has increased significantly since the Iraq war. The overwhelming majority of those incidents have been aimed at US personnel in Iraq.
She also says I was wrong when I said that invading would undermine the fight against Al Qaeda. But this is the view of many officials in the Bush Administration itself, including such distinguished departing officials as Richard Clarke. What she did not tell you is that I also predicted that the war would cause a spawning of new bin Laden-inspired groups, as most terrorist experts readily now confirm.
Tick-tick-tick, the sound of the white stockinged, mistakenly dubbed "sex bomb" Coulter imploding.
Via BuzzFlash, KeShawn saw a new article at The Black Commentator, Margaret Kimberly's "Gwen Ifell and Hack Journalism:"
Of course her credentials have been questioned by racist white people who are always unhappy when black people rise further than they think is proper. Don Imus has called Ifill "the cleaning lady." A New York Times columnist mused about her "substantial salary" and wondered how much PBS was paying her and her colleague Ray Suarez. Salaries tend not to be an issue where white people are concerned.
No matter what black people accomplish we are considered undeserving of accolades, money or decent treatment. Gwen Ifill is no exception. She is also no exception in contributing to the hack journalism that is now the rule rather than the exception in this country.
Like her buddy Condi Rice, she can't be let off the hook. Media insiders like Gwen Ifill who call themselves journalists, but act like anything but, are making life easier for the powerful evildoers. Regardless of anything Imus has to say, they must be called to account.
Journalists are supposed to be objective, ask tough questions, give the public information they can't access, and use that information to minimize lying by the powers that be. They are not supposed to get cozy with the subjects of their coverage. Gwen Ifill is unfamiliar with all of those do's and don'ts.
This is a must read article and an excerpt doesn't do it justice.
Lastly, Joan e-mails that NYC IndyMedia has the latest issue of the Indypendent (newspaper) posted at their site. And she notes Ann Schneider's "Busted!" Here's the opening:
The patient work of videographer Eileen Clancy of I-Witness Video, led last month to proof that someone in the District Attorney's office edited a video ofAlexander Dunlop, who was arrested as he was going to get sushi. Dunlop was charged with pushing his bicycle into a line of cops and resisting arrest. Portions of the video that contradicted these charges were deleted from the video that the DA turned over to defense lawyers.
This followed proof in a December trial that Officer Matthew Wohl manufactured testimony when he claimed to have arrested a squirming, screaming Dennis Kyne at the RNC. Actual video of the arrest showed Kyne was cooperative with his arresting officer, who, incidentally, was not Wohl.
A 1963 U.S. Supreme Court case, Brady v. Maryland, requires the prosecution to turn over exculpatory material in its possession to the defendant. If a failure to do so is somehow discovered later, the conviction must be overturned. But what are the consequences for an officer or assistant district attorney who is caught testifying or thwarting Brady's mandates?
The incidents made national news, thanks to reporter Jim Dwyer, who broke the story in the New York Times on April 12th. The disclosures seemed to have immediate and dramatic effect, specifically upon DA Robert Morgenthau's office.
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