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Monday :: September 17, 2007

Mukasey Accepts AG Position

Update: Here is the text of President Bush's nomination of Judge Mukasey this morning and Judge Mukasey's acceptance.

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White House sources said Sunday night Michael Mukasey has accepted President Bush's offer to be our next Attorney General.

What's up with Sen. Charles Schumer? First he touts Mukasey to Bush for both the Supreme Court and the Attorney General's position, and now he's promising a tough confirmation hearing and saying Judge Mukasey only has "potential" to be a consensus nominee?

Schumer said Mukasey will face questions about "important and sensitive issues," such as the controversy over the Bush administration's warrantless electronic surveillance program and the appointments of U.S. attorneys. But he said the former judge "has the potential to become a consensus nominee."

Maybe he should have ascertained the Judge's positions on these issues before he recommended him for the job.

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Hillary Unveils New Health Care Plan

Hillary Clinton's proposed health care plan is being released today.

Like John Edwards and unlike Obama, her plan will call for mandatory insurance for all Americans.

It will be much more streamlined and less complicated than the plan she introduced while Bill Clinton was President.

For those who are already insured and happy with their plans, there won't be any required changes.

Insurers will be required to provide insurance to everyone regardless of pre-existing conditions.

The plan will provide tax subsidies to individuals and small businesses to help pay for health insurance. Part of the cost will be covered by rolling back some of Bush's tax cuts to those earning more than $250,000 a year.

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Sunday :: September 16, 2007

Emmy Awards: Sally Field Censored; Sopranos Wins Best Series

Yes! The Sopranos gets its due and wins the Emmy for Best Drama Series.

But what was up with the censors? They were way too fast on the trigger. Sally Field did not deserve to get censored. Here's the video [Via Think Progress.]

After giving a tribute to the mothers of soldiers in harm's way, she said "If mothers ruled the world, there wouldn't be any god -" [cut]. The sentence uncensored: "If mothers ruled the world, there wouldn't be god-damned wars in the first place."

Congrats also to Jon Stewart and the Daily Show for winning the award for Best Variety, Music or Comedy Series and Al Gore, whose Current TV won an award for Creative Achievement in Interactive TV.

Overall, though tonight's Emmy Awards were terrible.

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OJ Simpson Held Without Bond

Bump and Update: OJ is being held without bond until tomorrow. His lawyer, Yale Galanter of Florida, responds:

"Obviously we intend to fight these charges vigorously. We believe it is an extremely defensible case based on conflicting witness statements, flip-flopping by witnesses and witnesses making deals with the government to flip," he said.

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Original Post: OJ Simpson Arrested

From AP:

O.J. Simpson was arrested Sunday on charges related to an armed robbery involving sport memorabilia, police said. Simpson was arrested shortly after 11 a.m. and is being brought to a police office, Capt. James Dillon said. Police are still determining charges against Simpson.

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Obama on Iraq: No Funding Without Timelines

Via Kos:

“We are going to bring an end to this war and I will fight hard in the United States Senate to make sure we don’t pass any funding bill that does not have a deadline,” Obama told the crowd.

Big props to Senator Obama. Hurrah!

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Bush Chooses Mukasey For AG

AP reports:

President Bush has settled on Michael B. Mukasey, a retired federal judge from New York, to replace Alberto Gonzales as attorney general and will announce his selection Monday, a person familiar with the president's decision said Sunday evening.
Mukasey, who has handled terrorist cases in the U.S. legal system for more than a decade, would become the nation's top law enforcement officer if confirmed by the Senate. Mukasey has the support of some key Democrats, and it appeared Bush was trying to avoid a bruising confirmation battle.

See Jeralyn's detailed reporting on Mukasey.

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Sunday Open Thread and Diary Rescue

I've already got a full day's worth of blog posts up. Time to let you take over, while I head outdoors.

Check out the recent diaries and don't forget to hit the "recommend" button for those you like.

If you'd like to write a diary on TalkLeft, whether as cross-posts or new material, here's the basics.

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Virginia upholds DNA testing on arrest

Virginia is the only state in the Union that allows the taking of DNA for certain violent felonies. On Friday, the Virginia Supreme Court upheld the suspicionless taking of DNA from a rape suspect in 2003 that linked him to a 1991 "cold case" rape.

The Virginia Court of Appeals upheld the conviction in 2006, and the Virginia Supreme Court, finding the taking of DNA no different than fingerprinting, upheld the suspicionless and probable cause-less taking of the same that linked the defendant to the 1991 rape. Anderson v. Commonwealth, 2007 Va. LEXIS 115 (September 14, 2007).

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NORML Founder Arrested in Boston For Smoking Joint

[Photo via CelebStoner]

Keith Stroup probably regards his arrest yesterday at a Boston marijuana reform rally as a badge of honor.

While delivering a speech at yesterday's Freedom Rally, he announced:

"Eight hundred thousand people were arrested last year for marijuana. Every 41 seconds someone gets arrested for marijuana. I got arrested a couple of hours ago right here."

In all, there were 60 arrests. Those arrested received "Class D" tickets. Even with bad weather, 5,000 attended the event.

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Conspiracy Theory

I missed this before, but Howie Kurtz, who often takes his cues from the right wing, talked about it this morning on CNN. The producer of the infamous "Path to 9/11" has a conspiracy theory:

"Whatever anyone may think about me or this movie, this is a bad precedent, a dangerous precedent, to allow a movie to be buried," added Nowrasteh, who received death threats even before the miniseries was broadcast last September. "Because the next time they'll go after another movie. The Bush administration may go after a movie. The next administration may go after a movie. No matter who it is, they may go after a movie. I think this town needs to stand up."

Stand up for an atrocious, unfair and inaccurate work presented as factual? Nowrasteh has an ally:

This isn't about politics, said film director Oliver Stone, but about the right of artists to have their work distributed. "This is a shame; it's censorship in the most blatant way," said Stone, who has hired Nowrasteh for several writing projects. "I'm not vouching for its accuracy -- it's a dramatization -- but it's an important work and needs to be seen."

It deserved to be scorned and was as it was a piece of fiction passed as fact. It was on ABC for 2 nights. There are a lot of "works" that were much more deserving to be seen than that "work." I think ABC should sell it back to Nowrasteh though so he can sell it through the usual right wing channels.

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Michael Mukasey May Be Named AG Monday

Bump and Update: President Bush may announce Mukasey as Attorney General on Monday. Glenn Greenwald has a lot more analysis, particularly on his role in the Padilla case.

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Original Post 9/15
Michael Mukasey Floated as AG Replacement

White House officials seem to be testing the name of former U.S. District Court Judge Michael Mukasey for Attorney General. CNN and the AP are reporting he is now the leading candidate.

I've been reading up on him for the past several hours and will present the pros and cons below.

Preliminary assessment: He's independent-minded, extremely experienced and smart, and while more conservative on terror-related issues than I'd like, far too supportive of the Patriot Act and too close to Rudy Giuliani for comfort, he doesn't run rough-shod over defendants' rights. As compared to Ted Olson, Mukasey is an improvement.

So, who is Michael Mukasey? See below.

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Drilling Has Colo. Republicans Losing Faith

The Washington Post reports that many Colorado Republicans on the Western Slope are losing faith in their party. Chief among their complaints is the Bush Administration's support of intense oil and gas drilling activity.

Long the most reliably conservative expanse of a state that has gone red in six of the past seven presidential contests, Colorado's western third shows evidence of the "purpling" that has made Colorado look increasingly like a swing state.

Colorado now has 32,000 active oil and gas wells. Another 40,000 are planned.

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