Obama writes woman booted from military for being gay, as Arabic linguist is fired by Raw Story Story follows after update. Update: An army officer based out of St. Louis, MO, Sandy Tsao, who was booted from the military after telling her superiors she was gay in January, has received a handwritten note from President Barack Obama vowing that he will overturn the policy. The letter, posted by the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, was noted by ThinkProgress Friday. The letter was received and sent before the latest disclosure of a gay Arabic translator’s firing.
Obama aide responsible for NYC flyover gets the boot by Raw Story That's the prettiest photo of pandemonium at a distance that I've ever seen.Louis Caldera, Director of the White House Military office, has stepped down from his job following outrage over the more-or-less unannounced flyover of Ground Zero in late April.
790 The Ticket moves Jorge Sedano to mornings by Barry Jackson 790 The Ticket unveiled a revamped lineup Thursday, headlined by Jorge Sedano's anticipated move to the morning-drive slot. Sedano, who had been hosting from noon to 3 p.m., will join station newcomer Krystal Fernandez from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. beginning Monday. Program director Steve White had filled in during those hours since Sid Rosenberg's departure March 13.
Secretary Doomsday and the Empathy Gap: The Everyday Extremism of Washington by Tom Engelhardt — from TomDispatchA front-page New York Times headline last week put the matter politely indeed: "In Pakistan, U.S. Courts Leader of Opposition." And nobody thought it was strange at all.In fact, it's the sort of thing you can read just about any time when it comes to American policy in Pakistan or, for that matter, Afghanistan. It's just the norm on a planet on which it's assumed that American civilian and military leaders can issue pronunciamentos about what other countries must do; publicly demand various actions of ruling groups; opt for specific leaders, and then, when they disappoint, attempt to replace them; and use what was once called "foreign aid," now taxpayer dollars largely funneled through the Pentagon, to bribe those who are hard to convince.
Let's All Celebrate National Nancy-Off-The-Table Day by David Swanson That's right, children, it's national Nancy Day, honoring the occasion on May 7, 2006, when Nancy Pelosi first allowed Tim Russert to badger her into agreeing that she wouldn't permit the impeachment of Saint George or Father Dick, not even if they barbequed children on the White House lawn.
Single-needle healthcare: Is high-tech acupuncture the wave of the future? by Jane Stillwater Maybe I'm becoming a hypochondriac, do you think? Lately, something always seems to be going wrong with my body. But have I been taking all this lying down? Sure, absolutely.This morning, however, I resolved to get my body back into shape and went down to Oakland to get myself checked out at the local acupuncture school. Why not. For only $20, you can get a complete physical diagnosis and tune-up. They check the pulses in your wrists, look at your tongue, ask you a bunch of questions that your primary care doctor never has time to ask you, stick thin silvery needles into your arms and legs, give you some little brown pills -- and voila! You're back on the road.
Sestak Disappointed in Biden, Obama and Reid for Siding with Specter by Cenk Uygur We interviewed Rep. Joe Sestak on Thursday night on The Young Turks. Two things seemed to be clear from the interview. 1. He's almost definitely running against Arlen Specter in the Democratic primary. 2. And he's really annoyed at the Democratic leadership in Washington, including the President, Vice President and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
Rove Continues to Batter Obama, Justify Bush by Don Monkerud The electorate is more divided than anytime in the past twenty years, but Karl Rove says he had nothing to do with it.Bush as a divisive president is "a myth," or so Karl Rove asserted during the Monterey Panetta Institute's lecture series, Can the Partisan Divide Ever End?
Arlen Specter's Legacy by Bob Burnett For many Democrats, Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter's change of Party affiliation was a mixed blessing. While the 79-year-old Specter is liberal on many social issues and probably gives Dems the 60th vote they need to reach cloture, his mercurial personality and increasingly erratic behavior are troubling. However, Specter views this political move as an opportunity to cement his legacy: reining in Presidential power and restoring the constitutional checks and balances destroyed by the Bush Administration.
In the Name of Womanhood and Humanity by David Swanson Imagine that tomorrow you begin to feel ill and rush to the hospital where you are eventually diagnosed with a horribly debilitating and probably incurable disease. Within a week your body and mind have deteriorated drastically. You cannot dress yourself. You have difficulty getting out of a chair or walking at all. You have no control over your bowels. You literally lack the sense to come in out of the rain or not wander into traffic. You are a danger to yourself and require a fulltime caregiver, one or more people of infinite patience and devotion who can turn their own lives into the handling of your life 24-7. And what if there is nobody who can do that for you? What if you are on your own?
Religion, agnostics, and the cure for baldness by Matt Taibbi And as for the vaunted triumph of liberalism, what about "the misery wreaked by racism and sexism, the sordid history of colonialism and imperialism, the generation of poverty and famine"? Only by ignoring all this and much more can the claim of human progress at the end of history be maintained: "If ever there was a pious myth and a piece of credulous superstition, it is the liberal-rationalist belief that, a few hiccups apart, we are all steadily en route to a finer world."
Stressing the Positive by Paul Krugman Hooray! The banking crisis is over! Let's party! O.K., maybe not.In the end, the actual release of the much-hyped bank stress tests on Thursday came as an anticlimax. Everyone knew more or less what the results would say: some big players need to raise more capital, but over all, the kids, I mean the banks, are all right. Even before the results were announced, Tim Geithner, the Treasury secretary, told us they would be "reassuring."
Stress Test: Obama's Rosy Scenario by William Greider Now it's official. Prosperity is right around the corner. We have heard the good news from both Wall Street and Washington. President Obama is careful not to use those very words, since this is what Herbert Hoover kept telling Americans during the country's ugly, post-1929 slide into the Great Depression. But the Obama administration sees "green shoots" sprouting all around and it offers hard evidence in the long-anticipated results of its "stress tests" for major banks. Good news! Nobody is insolvent. Some major names need to raise more capital--a not exactly trivial $75 billion more--but not to worry. They can all weather the storm, with a little more aid from Uncle Sam.
Smart Power in Pakistan/Afghanistan? by Katrina vanden Heuvel & Greg Kaufmann Inside the Rayburn Building on Capitol Hill Tuesday, there were two distinctly different hearings on Pakistan. One featured the Obama administration's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, and it was packed with mainstream media--standing room only. At the conclusion of his testimony--just one floor up from that hearing--the Congressional Progressive Caucus held its fifth forum on Afghanistan, this one focusing on the administration's Pakistan strategy and how it impacts both countries.
A Democrat Calls for Executive Accountability by John Nichols The election of Barack Obama to the presidency may have caused some Democratic members of Congress to think that the constitutional questions raised by the executive excesses of the Bush-Cheney era had been resolved, just it may have cause some Republicans members of Congress to start thinking about executive accountability.
Psychologists' E-Mails Stir Interrogation Issue by Farah Stockman Critics urge inquiry on ethics questionWASHINGTON - Newly public e-mails between psychologists involved in the Bush administration's controversial detention program have fueled a fierce debate over whether mental-health professionals should give advice on warfare, and whether the nation's largest psychology association tacitly blessed the government's use of abusive interrogations involving waterboarding and sleep deprivation.
Liar, liar, panties on fire by Doug Thompson Declassified Central Intelligence Agency documents show Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi knew seven years ago that we were torturing detainees.Shouldn't surprise anyone. Pelosi is, always has been and always will be, a liar.The daughter of one of the most corrupt mayors of Baltimore -- a city known for spawning fast-talking con artists -- claims she was only told that such tactics were under consideration.
