Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) wants to scare off Justice Dept lawyers from professionally addressing the Gitmo detainee issue. Spencer Ackerman reports:

In the latest bit of brazen slander from the right, Republican Senators are trying to invent a scandal about Justice Department lawyers who — horror — represented Guantanamo detainees. You know, provided the representation that the Rehnquist and Roberts Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled those detainees are entitled? And which even the military commissions provide for? Instead, there’s this McCarthyite tactic of calling Justice Department lawyers the “Gitmo Nine,” a name that oh-so-cleverly suggests that those lawyers were themselves detained at Guantanamo.

To reiterate: Republicans have no actual desire to seriously address national security issues. If the Democrats find their balls, maybe they can take a shot at closing out this shameful chapter of American history.

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February 23, 2010 CNN

Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) today asked the Obama administration to investigate what he called “the greatest scientific scandal of our generation” — the actions of climate scientists revealed by the Climategate files, and the subsequent admissions by the editors of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4).

Senator Inhofe also called for former Vice President Al Gore to be called back to the Senate to testify.

“In [Gore's] science fiction movie, every assertion has been rebutted,” Inhofe said. He believes Vice President Gore should defend himself and his movie before Congress.

When will Breitbart apologize for the phony O'Keefe/pimp-dressing ACORN story? I've been writing a lot about this story as has Neiwert and many others because it reminded us what "ratf*&king is all about. O'Keefe is Breitbart's Nixonian hit man.
And Brietbart pays the man a salary don't forget.

Eric Boehlert writes a great piece on Breitbart and the phony pimp story:

Last September, when the ACORN scandal that his website helped launch was breaking in the press, Andrew Breitbart wrote a column for The Washington Times detailing the rollout of the undercover, right-wing gotcha. He recalled a 2009 meeting with "filmmaker and provocateur James O'Keefe" that took place in Breitbart's office in June. It was there that O'Keefe played the columnist the surreptitiously recorded videos he'd made with his sidekick, Hannah Giles, and which captured the two famously getting advice from ACORN workers on how prostitutes could skirt tax laws.

In his Times column, Breitbart was quite clear about what he saw that day in his office: He watched videos of O'Keefe "dressed as a pimp" sitting inside ACORN offices "asking for -- and getting -- help" from the misguided employees.

But today we know that's almost certainly not true. Breitbart didn't huddle in his office and watch clips of O'Keefe "dressed as a pimp" chatting with ACORN employees, because based on all the available evidence, O'Keefe wasn't dressed as a pimp while taping inside the ACORN offices.

Make no mistake: Last fall, both Breitbart and O'Keefe, with the help of Fox News, did their best to confuse people about that fact. It's true the duo seemed to purposefully push that falsehood and mislead the public and the press about the ACORN story. And more importantly, they did it to make the ACORN workers captured on video look like complete jackasses for not being able to spot O'Keefe's pimp ruse a mile away.

But the story was not true...read on

Breitbart is a wanker for pushing the obvious lies, but the media and Congress were also duped and made to look like fools.

Digby has more:

This story is important. There's a long tradition of undercover muckraking that's initiated many an important social change in this country. But this isn't muckraking, it's political theatre. The level of cynical deception in this "story" runs several layers deeper than anything I've ever seen before, tapping into some really nasty, subterranean veins of stereotype, prejudice and racism --- on everyone's part --- to make what ends up being a completely distorted point.

The fact that what should have been instantly seen as an obviously absurd proposition was taken at face value even by the US congress and the major media institutions of this country should inform us a little bit about how tenuous our racial progress might just be. This was a shameful episode deserving of more scrutiny than it's gotten so far...read on

Congress should immediately reinstate funds to ACORN. This knee-jerk action by Congress was a travesty.

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(" . . .oh those transgressions")

With the current wave of scandals hitting Tiger Woods, I have come to realize Sports and Scandal have become synonymous . . .at least for the past hundred or so years.

I suppose what's different now is the nature of our society and the ever-scrutinizing media; our need for scandal, our obsession with icon-bashing, not to mention the element that fame and power are aphrodisiacs. Sports certainly has no exclusivity rights on that one - politics jumps to mind quicker. It all comes down to the spectacle of seeing the mighty fall, feigning shock and revulsion while poring over the tabloids for more.

But the whole issue of Sports and Morality has been a subject of discussion with a lot of people over the years. This particular clip is one I located from May of 1964. A discussion featuring sports figures Joe Garagiola and Jackie Robinson on the subject of Morality and Sports. Although by todays standards the discussion is quaint and surface and the product of a different time - barely mentioning the issue of personal codes of ethics since, at the time an athletes personal transgressions were kept carefully hidden from public view.

Joe Garagiola: “Jackie, how would you define morality in sports?”

Jackie Robinson: “Well I think, Joe, that we’d have to define it by saying whether the athlete knows the difference between right and wrong. And then we’d have to go a little bit further and say there are circumstances, even though there are rules on the books that an individual do certain kinds of things that are perhaps are not within the law, but he is circumventing it, as you pointed out a short time ago before we came on the air. And my estimation is that morality is just simply knowing right from wrong, whether its in sports or our everyday life.”

Jimmy Carter once indicated that America had lost its moral center. I'm not so sure that hasn't always been the case. What is different now as opposed to scandals in history is the level of scrutiny we have at our disposal today. Were there just as many moral indiscretions in 1964 as there are today? Probably.

We just chose not to notice them.

It's That Time Of Year

As you know, Newstalgia is committed to digging into history and pulling up gems for your reference libraries. It's what we do and it's what we love doing. The task is huge - digitizing over a quarter million analogue recordings takes time, energy and equipment. Equipment breaks down and has to be replaced. The archive is constantly acquiring new material and it all takes money.
So . . .if you like what we're doing and want to see it continue, would you mind tossing whatever you can into the cause by hitting the button below and making a donation to keep this thing going?

As always, we'll be here as long as you're here.

OurFuture: "Anything Goes" capitalism destroys companies and workers' lives

Capital Eye: Aides, lobbyists and contributors among those left in the wake of John Ensign's ethics scandal

Lean Left: Don't know much about history, biology, science books, the French I took...or art. But I do know that I'm a right wing moron.

Where’s the Outrage?: Dr. Errington Thompson says..."Keith, thanks for letting America see the world I work in every day."

TAPPED: Congress' torture coverup

Welcome Back to Pottersville: Assclowns of the Week: Nattering nabobs of negativism edition

President Obama has been getting a lot heat since the announcement that the 2016 Olympics would not be coming to the United States. The right has rejoiced in our loss, and Fox News and other right wing media have gone berserk with stories about the Chicago Olympic Committee, and false claims of cronyism and corruption.

Lost down the memory hole was the shame and scandal that tainted the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics. Eventually led by Republican Mitt Romney and his cronies, the 2002 games were plagued by fundraising woes, bribery scandals -- and the committee was also heavily infiltrated by Glenn Beck's Mormon Church:

Romney communicated his intention to take full command of the Olympics on his first day on the job in February of 1999. A century and a half after his ancestors trudged through Emigration Canyon to help pioneer the valley as a land of the righteous, Romney arrived in a cheerless ballroom in a Salt Lake City hotel. Immediately, he raised a rhetorical scythe at the trustees of the scandal-tainted organizing committee.

Much of the damage seemed to stem from decisions made by two previous executives on the Salt Lake City organizing committee, chief executive Thomas K. Welch and vice president David R. Johnson, who embraced the tacit form of influence peddling that greased the international selection process for Olympic sites.

Vowing not to be defeated again, Welch and Johnson funneled through the committee more than $1 million in gifts to numerous IOC delegates for the 2002 Games - a stunning trove of booty that included cash, college tuition, medical-care payments, jobs, lodging, beds and bedding, bathroom fixtures, Indian rugs, draperies, doorknobs, dogs, leather boots and belts, perfume, Nintendo games, Lego toys, shotguns, a violin, and trips to ski resorts, Las Vegas, and a Super Bowl in Miami. Almost no request from an IOC member went unmet.

Shamed by the scandal - in which 10 members of the International Olympic Committee would resign or be expelled for accepting gifts from the Salt Lake committee - Utah's power brokers believed they needed a new CEO wise in the ways of business, the law, and Mormonism.

Enter Mitt Romney, his buddies and the Mormon Church:

Almost as soon as Romney took the job, however, the Mormon Church's role in the Games became a source of contention - a dispute exacerbated by Romney's request for an additional $8 million in loaned property and cash from the church, among other contributions.

Utah's wealthiest businessman, Jon Huntsman Sr., the father of Utah's current governor, assailed Romney for exploiting his ties to the church. Huntsman himself is prominent in the Mormon Church, which is officially known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

''We've got a chairman who is active LDS, now we've got a present CEO who is active LDS,'' Huntsman was quoted in the Salt Lake Tribune as saying of Garff and Romney. ''They claim they're going out [to] really scour the world to find the best person, and Mitt brings in one of his cronies to be the COO. Another broken promise. Because we've got three LDS folks who are all cronies. Cronyism at its peak. ..... These are not the Mormon Games.' Read on...

Romney came in after the initial bribery scandal, but created plenty of controversy of his own.

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Rachel Maddow talks to former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias about the pressure put on him to go after ACORN for voter fraud allegations and how Karl Rove wanted to use the issue of voter fraud as a wedge issue to win elections. As Rachel notes sadly, that plan is still paying dividends with the Democrats being all too happy to cave into political pressure by the Republicans instead of standing up for ACORN.

MADDOW: We have previously reported on this show how corporate interests opposed to ACORN`s really successful efforts to raise the minimum wage targeted the group using Republican-allied P.R. firms that proudly specialized in demonizing their opposition.

But ACORN has not just been targeted by corporations who worry that ACORN`s advocacy for living-wage ordinances and an increased minimum wage will hurt their corporate bottom line. ACORN has also been the subject for years of a purely political smear campaign, a campaign engineered by Republicans who are threatened by ACORN`s work to register young and poor and minority voters.

The American voter is typically older and more wealthy than the typical American, and that tends to give the Republicans an electoral edge among voters as compared to the preferences of the populations at large. But ACORN`s registration drives have gone some distance to changing that. Over the past five years, ACORN registered close to 2 million voters. And, yes, the groups of people that ACORN typically registers tend to vote for Democrats.

Over the last few election cycles, fear of a younger, less wealthy, and, frankly, less white electorate led Republicans, especially in swing states, to go after ACORN aggressively, and, in fact, to try to gin up charges against them, to try to make their voter registration efforts in general seem suspect and perhaps to bring down the group entirely. And when I say "ginned up," I`m not exaggerating.

Do you remember the U.S. attorney scandal, the alleged fire ring of U.S. attorneys because of U.S. political considerations? Recall what that scandal was really about. In 2006, nine U.S. attorneys were fired, surprisingly and suddenly, by the Department of Justice under George W. Bush.

Former U.S. attorney David Iglesias -- one of those U.S. attorneys who lost his job despite positive job reviews -- maintains that his pink slip came after he resisted pressure from Republicans to pursue bogus voter registration cases involving ACORN. The pressure began as early as 2002 when Mr. Iglesias says in his book "In Justice," he received an e-mail from the Department of Justice in Washington, quote, "suggesting, in no uncertain terms" that U.S. attorneys "offer whatever assistance we could in investigating and prosecuting voter fraud cases."

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his vorpal sword: Indiana racist email story expolodes

Andy Worthington: Three innocent men released from Gitmo

Shakesville: What's wrong with (not just young people) everybody now

naked capitalism: How well has the Federal Reserve performed for America?

Open Left: Post Office zip code change prompts Insurance industry to attempt jacking up rates

Respectful Insolence: Quackery at HuffPo

Project On Government Oversight: Retaliation: Whistleblower allegedly forced out after helping to expose the guard scandal at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul

TPMMuckraker: While lunatics debate whether a president should be permitted to address the nation's youth, there's an education story bubbling up in Texas that could have considerably more far-reaching consequences.

The Washington Independent: Glenn Beck's next target: Cass Sunstein

Whiskey Fire: A world-besotted wingnut attempts to imitate Swift, and ends up not so much lacerating his breast as serving human stupidity.

Let's Try Democracy: There Are So Many Days That Have Not Yet Broken

Newsifact: Right-wing mob attacks Roger Federer during doctor's visit

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Rachel Maddow takes Karl Rove to task for his op-ed in the Wall Street Journal complaining that he's been "wronged by the press for years" and it's time for the press to own up for their mistakes about him. Rachel rehashes Rove's role in the US Attorney's scandal and tells Rove, good luck with your complaints.

Someone needs to ask the Obama Justice Department why they're not doing something about getting rid of these "Bushies" that are still in place in the Justice Department, and why Don Siegelman hasn't seen any justice yet.

MADDOW: In the opinion pages of today`s "Wall Street Journal," there is a startling claim by former Bush senior advisor Karl Rove. According to Mr. Rove, he has been wronged by the press for years and it`s time for the press to finally own up to its mistakes about him.

Specifically, Mr. Rove rails against allegations to the U.S. Attorney scandal, that he manipulated the judicial process for political reasons. He says in "The Journal" today that his role in the firing of U.S. Attorneys was minimal and entirely proper and that critics should just let up on him about these demonstrably untrue allegations.

You know what? The press actually doesn`t need to let up on Mr. Rove at all. Let me explain. In his article today, Mr. Rove emphatically disputes the claim that, quote, "The judicial process had been manipulated for political reasons."

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Rachel reports on the latest revelations to come out of the U.S. Attorney firings scandal.

Maddow: In 2006, nine U.S. federal attorneys, prosecutors, were surprisingly and suddenly fired by the Department of Justice under George W. Bush. U.S. Attorney Paulson Charlton of Arizona was fired while he was in the midst of building a case against Republican Congressman Rick Renzi for an allegedly illegal land swap deal that would eventually lead to a 35-count indictment, including charges of conspiracy, wire fraud, money laundering and extortion.

And in San Diego, U.S. Attorney Carol Lam had spearheaded the corruption investigation that brought down Republican Congressman Duke Cunningham, who eventually pled guilty to accepting at least $2.4 million in bribes. The "Dukester" is still doing more than eight years in prison for that.

And then there was U.S. attorney David Iglesias. And Mr. Iglesias' dismissal really caught people's attention and the House Judiciary Committee has been looking into his case and the cases of the eight attorneys for more than two years now.

Well, today, that committee released emails and transcripts of closed-door testimony by Bush's White House counsel, Harriet Miers, and Bush's political guru, Karl Rove. Ms. Miers testified that the White House, specifically Karl Rove and his staff, were intimately involved in the decision-making process about whether or not the supposedly independent U.S. attorneys, the supposedly apolitical prosecutors, were going to be allowed to keep their jobs.

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The plot thickens...

RIO DE JANEIRO — A television anchor who's the only journalist known to have spoken with South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford's Argentine lover since news of their affair broke last week said the couple received an e-mail threat from the person who hacked into her Hotmail account.

Eduardo Feinmann, who worked with Maria Belen Chapur when she was a translator for Argentina's C5N news channel, said in a telephone interview from Buenos Aires that a member of Chapur's family told him of the threat on Saturday.He said the family member told him that the e-mail from the unidentified person warned both Sanford and Chapur that "you don't know who you are messing with." He said he didn't know how either of them responded.

Sanford's wife has said she's known about the affair for many months, so if true, this would certainly explain a lot:

Chapur said in an e-mail to Feinmann, which the anchorman read on the air Sunday night, that her Hotmail account was hacked into around Nov. 24. She became aware of the intrusion shortly thereafter and by Dec. 8 had succeeded in having the account closed. Read on...

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(Thalidomide - when wonder drugs went awful)

One of the bigger scandals to hit the pharmaceutical industry came in the form of Thalidomide, a drug marketed throughout Europe in the late 1950's as sedative, pain killer and a morning sickness preventative for pregnant women.

Only it wasn't. By 1960 the drug was widely available throughout the world (even as an over-the-counter item in Germany) and the horrible side effects came to light. Children born with an alarming number of birth defects, most in the area of gross deformities.

By 1961, the FDA instituted a recall of Thalidomide and banned its use. But the question was, why did the FDA take so long to make these horrific discoveries and why did they wait almost a year to get them off the market?

As a result, the FDA utilized more stringent testing - although judging from the amount of drug recalls and related scandals the past several years, it would give pause to the idea that the system is foolproof.

Oddly enough, Thalidomide has made something of a comeback in recent years, not as a antidote for morning sickness but as a treatment for skin lesions and multiple Myeloma and other cancer forms.

This interview, from the ABC Sunday series "From The Capitol" from August 12, 1962 features George P. Larrick, Commissioner of the FDA talking about the Thalidomide scandal and the FDA's role in public safety.

It would be nice if we were out of the woods over future Thalidomide scandals. But that's not likely.

Teh stoopid, it hurts:

Fox Sports has compiled a list of women that can hold their own against men in the sports world — because everyone knows the real measure of a female athlete is how she competes against dudes. Fox starts their "Girl Power" list with Rachel Alexandra. Perhaps you've heard of her: She's a horse.

Last weekend Rachel Alexandra became the first filly in 85 years to win Preakness Stakes. And if horses can do it, so can humans!

Which female athletes had the good fortune of an equine comparison? Well, there's Katie Hnida, first woman to score in a NCAA football game, but she was entangled in a rape-allegation scandal, Fox notes. There's Michelle Wie, but of course she faced "substantial criticism" when she only qualified for one of 14 PGA events. Legendary athletic phenomenon Babe Didrikson Zaharias is also mentioned, plus that one time she didn't qualify for that one event.

See, it's important to remember that while these women were able to compete against men, they weren't necessarily very good at it.

We've come a long way, baby? Obviously not.

the talking dog: Yesterday's real big story

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Calitics: Pressured by California lawmakers, Obama expands mortgage refinance program

Prometheus 6: Improving Emergency Response Through Music

Pharyngula: What's Bachman said now?