Read This Now - It's Gonna Be Quiet In Arizona

Rage Against the Machine has organized the Sound Strike, a musical boycott of Arizona in response to it's new immigration law.  Several groups have canceled scheduled shows and hundreds are vowing not to visit the state...

"We have to intervene in order to do whatever we possibly can to limit that state's ability to function and implement the law," Zack de la Rocha, of the band Rage Against the Machine, says in a Web video he's produced. He's organized a boycott of Arizona called The Sound Strike. So far, he's recruited artists ranging from Kanye West and Nine Inch Nails to Latino bands such as Los Tigres del Norte. Jorge Hernandez says Los Tigres del Norte's decision to join the boycott was personal: If the Los Angeles musicians were to come to Arizona, he says, they worry that police could detain them. 

NPR has the story, check it out.

By the way Los Tigres are kind of a big deal. Try to find yourself a copy of the May 24th New Yorker article, it's a good one.

So Long Dan Schorr

Sunday mornings will never be the same without you.

For as long as I've been listening to NPR Dan Schorr has been providing insight and context for whatever the major issues of the moment might be.  He was always straightforward and forthright and he never failed to call it like he saw it.

NPR devotes and anyone who's ever read, listened to, or watched the news lost a friend when he passed away today at 93.

NPR, of course, has the story (listen to the special here).  And many big names in today's news world are remembering him fondly tonight.

Until about an hour ago I had never seen a picture of Dan Schorr, even though I could recognize his voice in an instant...

(this one's from the NPR website)

Read This Now - Larger Context

Eugene Robinson does not, as they say, mince words in putting the Sherrod story in the larger context of attacks on the Obama Administration...

The Sherrod case has fully exposed the right-wing campaign to use racial fear to destroy Obama's presidency, and I hope the effect is to finally stiffen some spines in the administration. The way to deal with bullies is to confront them, not run away. Yet Sherrod was fired before even being allowed to tell her side of the story. She said the official who carried out the execution explained that she had to resign immediately because the story was going to be on Glenn Beck's show that evening. Ironically, Beck was the only Fox host who, upon hearing the rest of Sherrod's speech, promptly called for her to be reinstated. On Wednesday, Vilsack offered to rehire her. 

Shirley Sherrod stuck to her principles and stood her ground. I hope the White House learns a lesson. 

Be sure to read the whole thing.

Someone picked the wrong lady to railroad this time.

1/21 Of The Story - The Vilsack Affair

I think that folks are right to be hard on the Obama administration and particularly on Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack over the whole Shirley Sherrod affair.  The way the Administration comported itself reeked of fear, shortsightedness, and unfairness.  I won't take up your time rehash the sordid details, you've already read them somewhere else from someone who is probably a better writer than I am (if you haven't Glenn Greenwald has a good outline and a few links).  I will say that you should take two or three minutes (the length of the edited video) and read Amy Davidson's post from the New Yorker.

Then you should take 43 minutes, when you have a chance, and hear what Sherrod actually had to say.  It's not a bad talk and her message is a good one...



Now that things are starting to get put back in place and appropriate apologies are being made one can only hope that this travesty will serve to make the media and the Administration take a deep breath and ask all the important questions the next time a right wing site sets out to smear someone.

What If The Tea Party Was Black

This is one of the best and most creative political uses of Youtube I've seen in awhile, plus the song is actually good, and there's no denying that the man has a point...



(via JW)

The New York Times Can't Handle The Truth

Not when it comes to torture at least.  The NYT has been refusing to call it torture when Americans do it, but if the same tactics are used in China (or elsewhere abroad) well clearly that's torture...

From a Thursday article on Bush Administration authorized torture (yeah, you heard me)...

A former Bush Justice Department official who approved brutal interrogation methods by the C.I.A. has told Congress that he never authorized several other rough tactics reportedly inflicted on terrorism suspects — including prolonged shackling to a ceiling and repeated beatings. 

And on Friday the same abuse perpetrated by the Chinese...

Others named in the same warrant and caught by the Chinese police had described beatings, suffocation, electric shocks, sleep deprivation and other forms of torture to get them to disclose details about the human rights group to which they all belonged. 

That's what we call a load of bull (astute readers will have noticed that the NYT even went with torture in the headline for the Friday piece).

Glenn Greenwald has been doing the heavy lifting on this story, you should check out his post on these stories and several others following the NYT's piss-poor journalistic standards, especially this long one.

Two Good Graphs

The picture kind, it's hard to beat a good visual.  Ezra Klein had a couple of doozys this week...

Why we need extended unemployment benefits:

That's something like 15 million people for whom there just aren't jobs available no matter how hard they're looking.

And meanwhile this happened...

Average folks are out of work, and the corporations who created this mess are enjoying increased earnings, brilliant.