President Obama on Monday and Tuesday will visit the Gulf states affected by the oil spill. He’ll address the nation on Tuesday night from the White House on the next steps in responding to the environmental catastrophe, his senior adviser said Sunday. – CNN
Some coffee with your news?
Good morning!
Important factoid of the day: On June 13, 1966, the Supreme Court issued the landmark case Miranda v. Arizona which held that criminal suspects had to be informed of their constitutional right to speak with an attorney and to remain silent before being questioned by police.
Here’s a round-up of some of the major stories bouncing around the airwaves and internet:
~ Some thought that President Obama would be more protective of government whistleblowers than his predecessor. Not. He’s gone after them with a vengeance.
~ In an opinion piece that I read about five times to determine if it was satire, two legal bloggers argue that Clarence Thomas would be a great GOP candidate for 2012. Words escape me.
~ A Roman Catholic priest in Colombia becomes a target for exposing the horrific human rights abuses of the government and security forces. The U.S. also has reason to possibly fear these revelations as it seems the U.S. is viewed by many there as having been knee-deep in the abuses perpetrated by the Colombian security forces.
~ Abby Sunderland, the 16 year-old who became stranded in the Indian Ocean while attempting to complete a solo sail around the world, was rescued by a fishing vessel on Friday. The whole incident has created a sometimes heated public debate over the wisdom of letting teenagers take part in extremely dangerous activities. And this incident comes on the heels of 13 year-old Jordan Romero being the youngest person to climb Mt. Everest in May.
~According to Haaretz today, Benjamin Netanyahu has updated President Obama on the selection of former Israeli Supreme Court justice Yaakov Tirkel to head a commission of inquiry into the flotilla raid.
~ Speaking of Israel, Poland has arrested an alleged Mossad agent involved the forging of passports in the assassination of the Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai and now the extradition battle begins.
~ On Friday Pope Benedict XVI begged for forgiveness for the sexual abuse scandal involving Roman Catholic priests but according to many, that still isn’t enough particularly given his own (alleged) personal role in the scandal prior to becoming Pontiff.
~ McClatchy is really doing a fantastic job journalistically of covering just about everything- from domestic issues to foreign policy. They seem to be doing something very few journalists at the NYT and WaPo do anymore- actual investigative journalism or in the alternative, simply asking tough questions of those in power. Yesterday they had a front page story about how President Obama, in deciding several months ago to expand offshore oil drilling, failed to essentially do the governmental equivalent of due diligence which might have prevented a catastrophic oil spill like the one we are dealing with now. It’s a damning story.
~ Speaking of BP, in case you missed this story from last week, the oil spill response plan BP submitted in 2009 contained numerous glaring omissions and in some cases, outright nonsense. For example, the wildlife expert that they said they would rely on in the case of a major oil spill had been dead for 4 years prior to the publication of the report.
~ Flash floods have hit Arkansas and tragically, the death toll continues to rise.
~ Joran van der Sloot was charged with murder and robbery and taken to one of Peru’s most notorious prisons, Castro Castro. Van der Sloot is charged with the murder of the 21 year-old student Stephany Flores and he is the prime suspect in the disappearance/likely murder of Natalee Holloway. Get this- Van der Sloot requested he get his own cell at the prison because he feared for his life, and they AGREED! Apparently, prisons in Peru are living hell and they make US prisons look like Club Med. Cells can have as many as 50 people in them, no beds , etc.
~HA! It’s a draw between the U.S. and England in the first round of play. Go Yanks! In other play, South Korea beat Greece and Argentina beat Nigeria.
~ Is infighting tearing apart the tea party movement?
~ Obama is pleading for Congress to release billions in funds for states to prevent massive layoffs and cuts, but Congressional Democrats have “spending fatigue.”
~ Chris Cillizza over at the WaPo doesn’t seem to “get” the significance of labor’s backing of Blanche Lincoln’s opponent, Bill Halter, in the Arkansas primary and instead argues that labor unions were the biggest losers of the past week. Now, I could be wrong, but labor sent a message, loud and clear, and if the Democrats don’t hear it, they could end up being 2012’s biggest losers.
This post has been updated.
Mornin’, SCB, great roundup.
The prosecution of Drake, your first item above, is something else.
He took his concerns everywhere inside the secret world: to his bosses, to the agency’s inspector general, to the Defense Department’s inspector general and to the Congressional intelligence committees. But he felt his message was not getting through.
So he contacted a reporter for The Baltimore Sun.
Today, because of that decision, Mr. Drake, 53, a veteran intelligence bureaucrat who collected early computers, faces years in prison on 10 felony charges involving the mishandling of classified information and obstruction of justice.
It’s one thing to go after people who are self-servingly leaking info. or passing it on to foreign governments but it’s quite another to go after govt whistleblowers who have uncovered government illegality, fraud or financial abuse. I’m not sure how the Justice Dept. can justify some of this unless the whistleblower laws have just been gutted to the point of being meaningless.
Obama wouldn’t go after people in the Bush administration who engaged in likely illegal activity (authorizing torture then covering it up, warrentless wiretapping, extraordinary rendition etc.) because he said he wanted to “move forward” but he’s more than willing to look back and go after the people exposing said wrongdoing? You have to be a real hypocrite to pull that off.
The wikileaks.org case of Army Spec. Bradley Manning goes straight to your point. Obama is also the first president to ever put out a ‘contract’ on an American citizen. Obama fully supports the Patriot Act and NSA spying on Americans. All in all Obama acts more like a fascist on these matters than like a democrat (small ‘d’). Peace
The people of Afghanistan know they’re being maneuvered into a civil war by the United States. Karzai knows that better than anyone else. Which is why, according to the experts, the diplomatic piece to Obama’s mission in Afghanistan is an abject failure. As anyone who is paying attention to what’s going on in Afghanistan knows it’s our military which is leading the diplomatic effort in that country. It is not Hillary’s State Department. That’s because Hillary knows what’s coming and doesn’t want to be left holding the bag when the entire enterprise goes south. Peace
It is so nice SCB to come and see your round up. Now I’m going to read everything. Thanks:)
Speaking with radio host Ben Shaprio, Michele Bachmann claimed that Barack Obama is the worst president in U.S. History.
SHAPIRO: Is President Obama better or worse than Jimmy Carter?
BACHMANN: Worse. Easily worse.
SHAPIRO: I agree. So far, you’d have to say he’s the worst president in United States history …
BACHMANN: No question. No question.
Bachmann went on to say that wherever she goes, “People ask me, ‘Michele, can we impeach the president?’” And she insists he won’t run for re-election because “no one would vote for him.”
Did she give any reasons or just the usual “because he’s not our team” nonsense.
Where were all the deficit hawks during the Bush years?
Obama not run for re-election? That’s hilarious.
This is how she gets people to pay attention to her. By saying outrageous things. She’s an embarrassment and a punchline.
so what does obama plan to tell america from the oval office tues night? cant find much yet. poltitico claims that after jesse jackson jr.’s brutal slam down of obama and the spill the other day seems to have been a motivater for the wh to do this.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0610/38463.html
He should have done this a long time ago, now it just looks defensive. I really think Axelrod Inc. doesn’t get just how bad things are for Obama right now. And what is truly incredible is despite not lifting a finger to clean house at MMS when they came in office, despite being seen too deferential to BP and despite now being seen as too close to Wall Street by fighting some of the most important aspects of financial reform he keeps making decisions which reinforce the view that he represents exactly what is wrong in Washington, which is all the more damning given he was the one that supposedly was going to fight for change.
Axelrod, Gibbs, Rahm- always playing defense and it just looks bad, bad, bad. People want leadership, not CYA.
So finally he is going to hold a press conference. I read it was going to be 15 minutes long. Were close to the 60 day mark !! It gets me so depressed even to talk about the oil spill anymore.
I can’t believe The United States team tied with England (Manchester) I heard it was one of the best football (soccer) teams around so I am thrilled about our team !! Hopefully soccer fever will finally hit the states also like it does around the world. Germany beat Australia 4 to 0 !!
I wouldn’t exactly call that a brutal slam, more like the first instance of constructive criticism. And Politico notes this:
“But they also represent a break from lawmakers who have second-guessed the political handling of the situation without offering an alternative path — or without attaching their names to the criticism.”
Liberals, in my opinion, are still stuck blaming FDR for Pearl Harbor. Or in this case, blaming Obama for the actual spill.
I don’t see any merits in the McClatchey piece, as it offers nothing but hindsight and speculation. Meritorious journalists would have been reporting on the dangers of deep sea oil exploration before the tragedy, or even the fact that the U.S. does not require a relief well.
My guess is that Rep. Jackson went public with his constructive solutions because they were not being heard inside the WH. Who was responsible for ignoring them? I don’t know.