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Monday, December 07, 2009
Doctors' bid to open Iraq WMD dossier David Kelly inquest
Six doctors are to take legal action in a bid to reopen the inquest in to weapons inspector Dr David Kelly.
The scientist, 59, was found dead in woods near his Oxfordshire home in July 2003, after being named as the source that claimed the Government had "sexed up" a dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
An inquiry by Lord Hutton concluded Dr Kelly, a Ministry of Defence advisor, had died from cuts to his wrist and an overdose of powerful painkillers.
But a group of six doctors want the case re-examined, claiming there is insufficient evidence to prove he committed suicide.
Read on.
Huck On Commuting Maurice Clemmons: ‘I’d Do It Again’
The murder of four Washington police officers, allegedly at the hands of Maurice Clemmons while out on bail, is a terrible tragedy with collateral damage that may include Mike Huckabee’s political career. While governor of Arkansas, Huckabee commuted Clemmons’ 108 year sentence for a rash of nonviolent crimes to 47 years, allowing Clemmons to leave prison in 2000 after serving 11 years. Now, Clemmons may very well be Huckabee’s Willie Horton, but the Fox host took to his show Saturday to address the tragedy and his role in it.
Huckabee began by acknowledging the “horrible and grisly crime” at the hands of a “psychotic killer.” He distanced himself from the crime by saying that his decision at the time was based on what he had in front of him, not “a premonition” of what would happen in the future “in another state.”
“I take full responsibility for my decision to commute his sentence in 2000,” said Huckabee, standing and speaking directly to the camera. “If I had the same file in front of me today that I had then, I’d make the same decision,” he said, before throwing a little jab at the media and political pundits.
Read on.
Gates on whereabouts of Bin Laden: No intel in years.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates told me that the U.S. has not had any good intelligence on the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden in "years."
He also couldn’t confirm reports that a detainee in Pakistan had claimed that he had information on where bin Laden was earlier this year. He made the startling admission during my interview with him for "This Week" airing Sunday.
Here's the exchange:
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: "The Pakistani Prime Minister shrugged off any concerns about that this week, about whether or not he’d done enough to go after Osama bin Laden. He said he doesn’t believe Osama is in Pakistan. Is he right and do you think the Pakistanis have done enough to get him?"
DEFENSE SECRETARY ROBERT GATES: "Well, we don’t know for a fact where Osama bin Laden is. If we did, we’d go get him"
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: "What was the last time we had any good intelligence on where he was?
DEFENSE SECRETARY ROBERT GATES: "I think it’s been years."
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: "Years?!"
DEFENSE SECRETARY ROBERT GATES: "I think so."
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: "So these reports that came out just this week about a detainee saying he might have seen him in Afghanistan earlier this year, we can’t confirm that?Gates: No."
Read on.
Read on.
Planet Wingnut News for Monday
Friedman: Afghanistan Is Like 'Special Needs Baby'
Tom Coburn: "We Passed Something for Women's Health" Because of "Emotional Attraction" on Things Associated With Women
Sen. Tom Coburn, after first claiming that the Republicans aren't just looking out for the insurance industry goes on to say this about why the Senate passed the Mikulski breast screening amendment.
Coburn: Because we know a larger percentage of the emotional attraction has to do with those things associated with women. So we pounded our chest and passed the Mikulski bill for preventative care for women and we ignored the preventative requirements of everybody else in this country.
Sen. Tom Coburn, after first claiming that the Republicans aren't just looking out for the insurance industry goes on to say this about why the Senate passed the Mikulski breast screening amendment.
Coburn: Because we know a larger percentage of the emotional attraction has to do with those things associated with women. So we pounded our chest and passed the Mikulski bill for preventative care for women and we ignored the preventative requirements of everybody else in this country.
Rove Blames the Economy Melting Down on Fannie and Freddie
Rove is then asked by Greta Van Susteren if the Bush administration is responsible at all for the shape the economy is in. Rove tries to blame the economy melting down on Fannie and Freddie and on Chris Dodd and Barney Frank--it's all their fault! This is the same crap Rove was peddling in his Wall Street Journal column back in January. Barry Ritholtz does a nice job of debunking Rove's nonsense here--Karl Rove’s Factually Challenged Housing Revisionism.
Rove is then asked by Greta Van Susteren if the Bush administration is responsible at all for the shape the economy is in. Rove tries to blame the economy melting down on Fannie and Freddie and on Chris Dodd and Barney Frank--it's all their fault! This is the same crap Rove was peddling in his Wall Street Journal column back in January. Barry Ritholtz does a nice job of debunking Rove's nonsense here--Karl Rove’s Factually Challenged Housing Revisionism.
VAN SUSTEREN: Here's the problem with what you suggest. I mean, that may be the suggestion for the economy, and I don't mean to suggest that decisions are made on politics. But to be sort of practical and realistic, the fact that there will be an election next November, if they cut the corporate tax, as you say, for big corporations, accelerate depreciation for small businesses, the first thing I would do as an opponent is saying, Well, he finally came around to the Republican thinking. And it took him a year or so or a year behind the ball on this in terms of the role of the recession. Plus, we've spent all this money in the stimulus package and we've got ourselves now in a huge spending situation. So you know, that solution may help the economy, but doesn't that make him more vulnerable politically?
ROVE: Well, it does say that he changes course. But I mean, look, it's not working. We were told that if we did nothing, unemployment would go to 8 percent. We did exactly what the president wanted, his $787 billion stimulus bill, and unemployment has gone to 10 percent. We've gone from a situation -- when he came into office, there were 142.1 million Americans working. Today there are 138.5 million Americans working. We did what he said and it has not gotten appreciably better.
Continue reading »
ROVE: Well, it does say that he changes course. But I mean, look, it's not working. We were told that if we did nothing, unemployment would go to 8 percent. We did exactly what the president wanted, his $787 billion stimulus bill, and unemployment has gone to 10 percent. We've gone from a situation -- when he came into office, there were 142.1 million Americans working. Today there are 138.5 million Americans working. We did what he said and it has not gotten appreciably better.
Continue reading »
Clinton willing to meet with anyone who has concerns about Knox's murder trial in Italy
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says she hasn't yet looked into the case of the American college student in Italy who was found guilty of murdering her British roommate.
Amanda Knox of Seattle has been sentenced to 26 years in prison after a yearlong trial. Knox's family insists she's innocent and is a victim of character assassination. They plan to appeal.
Sen. Maria Cantwell, a Democrat from Washington state, has said she plans to bring her own concerns — including whether "anti-Americanism" tainted the trial — to Clinton.
Clinton says she's been tied up with Afghanistan policy and hasn't examined the case. Clinton says she'll meet with anyone who has concerns about the case. She also says she hasn't expressed any concerns to the Italian government.
Clinton spoke on ABC's "This Week."
Source: AP News
Geithner: Goldman would have failed without bailout
Newster.com:
(Newser) – Goldman Sachs fatcats were musing this week about how they might have been fine without a federal bailout, but Tim Geithner is having none of it: “None of them would have survived,” he tells Bloomberg, without federal intervention. “The entire US financial system and all the major firms in the country, and even small banks across the country, were at that moment at the middle of a classic run, a classic bank run.”
Also from the Al Hunt interview:
· On financial reform: “It is very important that we change the way these executives are paid, the form of compensation, this year. We have to end that era of irresponsibly high bonuses. ... The basic problem we face across the system is that executives were paid for taking imprudent risks,”
· On TARP repayments: “We now estimate that we’re probably going to have $175 billion in repayments from the banking system by the end of next year."
After all, Goldman did the most subprime loan debt than JP Morgan, Citigroup, and so on. And it makes perfect sense why Goldman had to positioned itself to be a bank holding company along with Morgan Stanley. Read more from the Justice League posting. Click here.
SPB News for Monday
Palin's Father: She Left Hawaii Because Asians Made Her Uncomfortable — WHAT'S YOUR REACTION? — Did Sarah Palin leave Hawaii because there were too many Asians? In the New Yorker review of “Going Rogue,” Sam Tanenhaus writes that Palin's father suggested as much to the reporters who wrote “Sarah From Alaska.”
Gordon Brown snubbed by soldiers' 'curtain' protest Gordon Brown was snubbed by badly injured Afghan veterans when they closed curtains round their beds during a hospital visit and refused to speak to him. More than half the soldiers being treated at the Selly Oak hospital ward in Birmingham either asked for the curtains to be closed or deliberately avoided the prime minister, according to several of those present.
Gordon Brown snubbed by soldiers' 'curtain' protest Gordon Brown was snubbed by badly injured Afghan veterans when they closed curtains round their beds during a hospital visit and refused to speak to him. More than half the soldiers being treated at the Selly Oak hospital ward in Birmingham either asked for the curtains to be closed or deliberately avoided the prime minister, according to several of those present.
This week's poll had asked:
Concern over Dubai's debt problems has driven down US shares amid signs of a recovery in the main European markets. Could this reignite the financial turmoil? There was a tie. Readers answered yes and no. This week's poll is now up.
Temp agencies firm a magnet for unfit nurses
LA Times:
Firms that supply temporary nurses to the nation's hospitals are taking perilous shortcuts in their screening and supervision, sometimes putting seriously ill patients in the hands of incompetent or impaired caregivers.Emboldened by a chronic nursing shortage and scant regulation, the firms vie for their share of a free-wheeling, $4-billion industry.
Some have become havens for nurses who hopscotch from place to place to avoid the consequences of their misconduct.An investigation by the nonprofit newsroom ProPublica and the Los Angeles Times found dozens of instances in which staffing agencies skimped on background checks or ignored warnings from hospitals about sub-par nurses on their payrolls. Some hired nurses sight unseen, without even conducting an interview.
As a result, fill-in nurses with documented histories of poor care have fallen asleep on the job, failed to perform critical tests or stolen drugs intended to ease patients' pain or anxiety."
A lot of them are really bad nurses," said Sandra Thompson, a nursing supervisor at Northridge Hospital Medical Center and Sherman Oaks Hospital, both in the San Fernando Valley. "Sometimes I see them here [at Northridge] and think, 'I wonder how long before I see them over' " at Sherman Oaks?
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