Deniece Williams
“It’s Gonna Take a Miracle”

Canadian based comedienne Judy Croon joins us for a fun interview on the next edition of “Blue Herald Radio” available July 9th at 5:00 AM. Aside from her stellar stand up comedy, Judy was also a co-host of XM Radio Canada’s “Mike Bullard: Uncensored” until it was unceremoniously canceled just six months into the run.

Judy will talk comedy writing, performing and radio with us on the next edition of “Blue Herald Radio”. Plus, we’ll play some clips of Judy’s stand-up work and some clips from “Mike Bullard: Uncensored”.

We’ll also have our usual news segments, political updates, commentary and music.

Blue Herald Radio is available each Monday morning beginning at 5:00 AM. You can download it via iTunes, download it as an mp3 to play later or listen to it on the site.

As if his backing is going to swing the election either way. - JS

HARTFORD, Connecticut (Reuters) - U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, an independent who supports Democrats in Congress despite his backing of the Iraq war, said on Thursday he was not ruling out endorsing a Republican in the White House race.

The 2000 Democratic vice presidential candidate said he also wants to see if an independent enters the crowded field of 2008 presidential hopefuls.

“I’m going to chose whichever candidate that I think will do the best job for our country, regardless of the party affiliation of that candidate. I’m not going to get involved until after both parties have their presumptive nominees and, frankly, to see if there is a strong independent candidate,” he said.

Lieberman was re-elected to a fourth Senate term in November as an independent in Connecticut.

Many Democrats last year abandoned Lieberman in favor of his Democratic rival, Ned Lamont, a millionaire and political outsider who ran on an anti-Iraq-war platform focused on public discontent over President George W. Bush’s policies.

“There’s a lot on the line both in terms of the terrorist threat that we face but also all the things here at home that seem broken: our health-care system, our education system, the environmental problems we have,” he said.

Xbox 360 repairs will cost Microsoft $1B

SEATTLE - In another setback for Microsoft Corp.’s unprofitable entertainment and devices division, the company says it is planning to spend at least $1 billion to repair serious problems with its Xbox 360 video game console.

Microsoft declined to detail the problems that have caused an onslaught of “general hardware failures” in recent months but said Thursday it will extend the warranty on the consoles to three years.

Gore arrest highlights Rx drug abuse

CHICAGO - Drug abuse experts say the arrest of Al Gore’s son underscores the growing problem of prescription drug abuse among America’s youth. College students use the stimulant Adderall, an attention deficit drug, to get a speedy high or pull all-nighters.

The other drugs police say they found in Al Gore III’s possession - marijuana, Xanax, Valium and Vicodin - also are campus favorites, experts say.

Tony Parker and Eva Longoria get married

PARIS - Professional basketball star Tony Parker married “Desperate Housewives” star Eva Longoria at a civil ceremony in Paris on Friday - a prelude to their expected star’studded weekend wedding bash at a lavish and storied chateau.

Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe officiated and gave a speech saying how happy he was that they were married in the City of Light, said the mayor of Paris’ 4th District, Dominique Bertinotti.

UCLA student has old Hilton cell number

LOS ANGELES - For months, Shira Barlow’s cell phone was flooded with wrong-number calls and text messages, mostly between 2 and 4 a.m. on weekends. Told they had reached a college student, callers refused to believe it.

“Baby girl, how are you?” one man purred in a foreign accent. “Why are you doing this?” a woman asked. “This is so rude.” And there were several seemingly random references to “Paris.”

As in Paris Hilton.

Feds search Michael Vick’s property

SURRY, Va. - Federal agents investigating possible dogfighting searched property owned by Michael Vick on Friday.

Portsmouth’s WAVY-TV broadcast video of investigators working under a blue tarp on a portion of Vick’s wooded property in southeastern Virginia. They were sifting dirt collected in white buckets and clearing brush. Some wore T’shirts with the wording “POLICE.”

The U.S. attorney’s office, contacted Friday by The Associated Press, would neither confirm or deny the search or an investigation. Surry County officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

All stories from YAHOO! NEWS

It’s bad when the spokesman for The White House decides he has a branch of government all by himself and writes OP/ED pieces and then, basically has his own “show” at a White House press conference. At least some of the reporters are beginning to “grow a pair” and start asking some serious questions and calling these people on their lies and misinformation. - JS

cross-posted at Think Progress

Yesterday, White House spokesman Tony Snow was asked if the USA Today op-ed he wrote was an attempt to justify the President’s extraordinary clemency order with a “Clinton did it too” argument:

REPORTER: Tony, why do you … in your op-ed today you brought up the Clinton pardons, as well. Do two wrongs make a right? Is that the idea, like if Clinton did wrong …

SNOW: Well, this is … no, this is not a wrong, but I think what is interesting is perhaps it was just because he was on his way out, but while there was a small flurry, there was not much investigation of it.

Snow’s contention that “there was not much investigation” of Clinton’s pardons is an apparent attempt to preclude any congressional inquiry into Bush’s actions, particularly whether it was appropriate to extend clemency to an aide who has “knowledge that could incriminate his bosses in the White House.” The House Judiciary Committee has a hearing set for July 11 on the issue.

Furthermore, Snow is dishonestly distorting the facts when he says there “was not much investigation” of Clinton’s pardons. In fact, there was substantial investigation:

01/20/01: On his final morning in the White House, President Clinton grants 140 presidential pardons and 36 commutations.

2/08/01: The House Government Reform Committee, headed by Dan Burton, launches hearings into Clinton’s last-minute pardons.

2/14/01: Pardon hearings begin in the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is chaired by Republican Orrin Hatch.

2/15/01: Manhattan U.S. attorney Mary Jo White, in conjunction with the FBI, launches a criminal investigation into all the Clinton pardons.

2/23/01: Manhattan U.S. attorney Mary Jo White announces her office is investigating commutations Clinton granted to four Hasidic men from upstate New York.

2/27/01: Clinton waives his claim to executive privilege, saying three of his former aides are free to testify before the House Government Reform Committee.

3/01/01: Former aides John Podesta, Beth Nolan and Bruce Lindsey testify for an entire day before the House Government Reform Committee.

3/11/01: Pledging continued investigations into the pardons, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott says Congress must not “walk away” from the work pursuing Clinton.

3/13/01: Attorney General John Ashcroft has asks White to expand her current investigation into some of President Clinton’s pardons to include all 177 of the last-minute clemencies and commutations.

In total, the investigations into Clinton’s issuances of executive clemency took over a year to conclude. The House Government Reform Committee didn-t release its final report until March 2002, well over a year after President Clinton left office. The Justice Department didn-t close its investigation, in which it concluded “it wasn-t appropriate to bring charges against anybody,” until June 2002.

It’s hard to see how over a year of multiple inquires could be characterized as “not much investigation,” but then again, Tony Snow has never appeared too concerned with getting his facts right when it comes to defending his boss.

cross-posted at NO QUARTER

“Thompson’s website, I’m With Fred, boasts of his purportedly central role in uncovering the existence of the White House taping system, noting that it was Thompson who asked Alexander Butterfield the fateful question.”

However, today’s Boston Globe reveals:

The day before Senate Watergate Committee minority counsel Fred Thompson made the inquiry that launched him into the national spotlight — asking an aide to President Nixon whether there was a White House taping system — he telephoned Nixon’s lawyer.

Thompson tipped off the White House that the committee knew about the taping system and would be making the information public. In his all-but-forgotten Watergate memoir, “At That Point in Time,” Thompson said he acted with “no authority” in divulging the committee’s knowledge of the tapes, which provided the evidence that led to Nixon’s resignation. It was one of many Thompson leaks to the Nixon team. …

“Thompson was a mole for the White House … Fred was working hammer and tong to defeat the investigation of finding out what happened to authorize Watergate and find out what the role of the president was.”

read more at “No Quarter“

cross-posted at Think Progress

Washington DC FM talk radio station 106.7 WJFK yesterday announced it was dropping Bill O-Reilly’s nationally syndicated show, and replacing it with a sports-talk program. The Washington Post reports today that O-Reilly’s cancellation is a “case in point” of how poorly conservative radio programs have fared in DC:

With the exception of Rush Limbaugh, conservative talk-radio hosts have struggled for years to find a wide audience on the local dial. While Limbaugh’s afternoon program remains popular on WMAL (630 AM), not many other conservatives- programs have.

Yet despite their underwhelming performance, numerous right-wing radio hosts have been given repeated opportunities to succeed in DC. “Such radio stars of the right as Laura Ingraham, Glenn Beck and Michael Savage at times have literally had no ratings in Washington, as measured by Arbitron.”

In its diagnosis of conservative talk’s failures in the DC region, the Post points to a host of factors including the weak signals of some stations, weak programming, and the unique culture of the area that is resistant to political talk radio. One factor that went unmentioned, however, is the impact media consolidation has had on the local market.

read more at THINK PROGRESS

Cross-posted at Think Progress

Capital BlueCross VP of Corporate Communications Barclay Fitzpatrick recently went to see Moore’s film SiCKO. In an internal memo, he writes, “You would have to be dead to be unaffected by Moore’s movie.” He worries that if “popular, the movie will have a negative impact on our image in this community,” and suggests “talking points” to discount the film.

Read the memo here

How law firms are failing New Orleans

By Lisa Lerer
from Slate magazine

Law firms are the cavalry of the legal world. Disaster strikes, and the firms, with their thousands of lawyers and millions of dollars, ride into town to clean up the mess.

But what happens when the cavalry doesn’t show?

That’s the situation in New Orleans, where almost two years after Katrina, the criminal-defense system is still in a state of emergency. Public defense was never the city’s strength: When the levees broke, there were about 7,000 criminal defendants waiting to see a state-appointed lawyer. Immediately after the storm, the city jailed roughly 5,000 of them, many on shaky legal grounds. Most remained locked up for over a year before speaking with a lawyer. The public defender’s office is slowly working through the backlog, but is still overwhelmed. It’s a situation public defenders bitterly call “Gitmo on the Bayou.”

In response to the crisis, more than 2,700 law students traveled to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, on trips a bit reminiscent of the famous civil rights freedom rides. The students do just about everything but appear in court, including interviewing defendants and collecting evidence. Public defenders from different parts of the country took sabbaticals from their day jobs to come down as well. But however welcome, this is as effective as washing the bathroom floor with a toothbrush, say New Orleans public defenders. Eventually, you’ll clean up the mess, but a mop could take care of the problem a whole lot faster. The law firms are far stronger and richer than anyone else in the legal world. Why aren’t they helping the Bayou’s criminal-defense bar recover?

read more at SLATE MAGAZINE

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court in Cincinnati on Friday ordered the dismissal of a lawsuit challenging President George W. Bush’s domestic spying program adopted after the September 11 attacks.

The appeals court panel ruled by a 2-1 vote that the groups and individuals who brought the lawsuit, led by the American Civil Liberties Union, did not have the legal right to bring the challenge in the first place.

The surveillance program was authorized by Bush to monitor the international phone calls and e-mails of U.S. citizens, without first obtaining a court warrant.

It caused a political uproar among Democrats and some Republicans, as well as civil rights activists, who said it violated U.S. law. The Bush administration abandoned the program in January, putting it under court review.

A U.S. district court in Detroit ruled in August last year that the program violated the Constitution and a 1978 law prohibiting surveillance of U.S. citizens on U.S. soil without the approval of the special surveillance court.

The Bush administration appealed, and the appeals court in Cincinnati set aside the judge’s decision. The ruling held that the plaintiffs did not have standing or the legal right to sue. It did not decide the merits of the lawsuit challenging the program as illegal and unconstitutional.

Judge Ronald Lee Gilman dissented. He said he would uphold the ruling last year on the grounds that the program violated the 1978 law.

from United Press International

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J., July 6 (UPI) — Live Earth, the seven-continent concert against climate change, will inspire personal change on a global scale, organizers in the U.S. predicted Friday.

Despite A-list line-ups of rock, pop and hip-hop acts on eight far-flung stages, enthusiasm is tepid the day before the ambitious event begins, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The goal, say some, is muddled. Bob Geldof, organizer of Live Aid and Live 8 concerts, says unless Live Earth presents concrete environmental measures, “it’s just an enormous pop concert.”

Two key figures behind Live Earth are former U.S. vice president Al Gore, who’ll speak at the U.S. site in East Rutherford, N.J., and Kevin Wall, the Emmy-winning producer who worked with Geldof on the Live 8 event.

Wall said the point of Live Earth is to motivate average people to engage in the issue and change their everyday behavior to protect Earth.

“I have no illusion that a concert is going to solve this problem, but what it will do is begin a long, ambitious and focused campaign to educate people on the issue,” Wall said. “We are going to be very clear in what we’re asking people to do.”

*Note: The “Live Earth” concerts will be able to be heard on various channels on XM Satellite radio.

BAGHDAD, July 6 (UPI) — Insurgents attacked British military bases and patrols in southern Iraq Friday, a British militart spokesman said.

The spokesman said all British bases and positions around Basra were attacked with artillery shells and rockets and that a military patrol had been attacked with a bomb, rockets and automatic gunfire, the Kuwait News Agency, KUNA, reported.

The spokesman did not say whether anyone had been killed in the attacks.

Also Friday, four explosions rocked the heavily-fortified Green Zone in Baghdad, KUNA reported.

Missiles fell on a number of buildings in the Green Zone, which houses Iraqi government buildings and the U.S. and British embassies.

A car bomb killed 17 people and wounded 25 others at a Baghdad wedding Thursday, Voice of America reported. The bride and groom were among the injured in the car bombing and children were among the dead.

The U.S. military said coalition forces killed three terrorists and captured eight suspects in al-Anbar province, VOA reported.

Also, a U.S. soldier died Thursday from wounds received in combat in western Baghdad and two American soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb, the military said.

By THOMAS WAGNER and MARYCLAIRE DALE,
Associated Press Writers

LONDON - Two suspects in the failed car bombings in Britain had contacted a clearinghouse for foreign doctors about working in the United States, the FBI said Friday, and British officials probed links between the attacks and al-Qaida in Iraq.

An FBI spokeswoman said Mohammed Asha and another suspect had contacted the Philadelphia-based Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates, as first reported in The Philadelphia Inquirer. Asha, a Jordanian physician of Palestinian heritage, contacted the agency within the last year, but apparently did not take the test for foreign medical school graduates, said the spokeswoman, Nancy O’Dowd.

“He was applying, (but) we don’t believe he took the test,” she said.

O’Dowd could not immediately confirm the name of the second suspect.

The FBI visited the organization’s office in West Philadelphia this week, O’Dowd said.

On June 29, authorities defused two car bombs that had been set to explode near packed nightclubs and pubs in central London. The following day, two people rammed a car loaded with gas canisters into the airport terminal in Glasgow, Scotland. The car ignited, seriously injuring one of the suspects. Both men in the car have been arrested.

“From what I know, we are getting to the bottom of this cell that has been responsible for what is happening,” Prime Minister Gordon Brown said in an interview with British Broadcasting Corp. television.

Asha was arrested on the M6 highway Saturday night along with his wife. In Jordan, security officials said Asha had no criminal record, and friends and family said they found it hard to believe either he or his wife were connected with terrorism.

read more at YAHOO! NEWS

White House spokesman Scott M. Stanzel

BA Journalism and Mass Communications 1995
Seattle, Wash.

From an MSNBC article yesterday: White House raps recent flurry of probes

Real legislation? Scott seems to be unaware that whenever Congress tries to legislate on these important issues, the GOP minority spares no expense at blocking it - including using the very same filibuster maneuver that republicans recently lambasted democrats over. Also, does Scott believe in the congressional oversight authority over the Executive Branch? Appears he doesn’t.

Yo, Scott… Try to imagine just how much legislation could have taken place if the republicans hadn’t wasted so much time sticking their noses into President Bill Clinton’s private business!

From a July 5th post at TPMmuckraker: White House: “Equal Justice?”

Scott admits to not knowing what “equal justice under the law” means. Good grief! His credentials suggests a higher level of education, but he speaks the language of NASCAR.

Where Do They Find These People?