Rev. Al Sharpton was on CNN's Situation Room today, discussing Don Imus's appearance on his radio show.

Interesting that John McCain and James Carville have said they will continue to go on Imus' show. As I suggested here, since corporate dollars are at stake making it unlikely Imus will be fired, the most effective way of silencing him would be for his advertisers and prominent guests to boycott him. And for those who want to help kids with cancer to give to St. Jude's instead of his ranch.

Here's the transcript (received by e-mail from CNN):

BLITZER: Saying sorry is apparently hard to do, especially when you are being grilled for racially insensitive comments. That's what Don Imus faced today over comments he made about a woman's basketball team. The person he faced, the Reverend Al Sharpton. Reverend Sharpton is joining us now from New York. Reverend Sharpton, thanks for coming in.

AL SHARPTON, CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST: Thank you.

BLITZER: All right, so, did he reassure you, or you still want him fired?

SHARPTON: Oh, no, we want him fired.

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Um, what people I-Man?

A reminder for Tom Oliphant:

"That's some rough girls from Rutgers," Imus said. "Man, they got tattoos ... ." "Some hardcore hos," McGuirk said. "That's some nappy-headed hos there, I'm going to tell you that," Imus said.

Tom Oliphant, the whitest man on the planet, stands by his brother Imus:

Boston Globe columnist Tom Oliphant began his appearance on the April 9 edition of Imus in the Morning by stating: "Good morning, Mr. Imus, and solidarity forever, by the way." Oliphant also referred to political pundits like himself who appear on the show as Imus' "constituency."

Hahahahaha! White people are funny. h/t atrios.

Matt Stoller discovers what some of us have known for a while, since last July - Obama has a lot to learn about politics:

[T]he Obama strategy of not challenging power structures is working to collect lots of money and push him up in the polls. But when that first negative ad hits, when he's smacked for caving to special interests or trying to have it both ways on Iraq, will he have the credibility to say that this is just the old way of doing politics? I don't know. But so far, the Democratic base is saying 'Why should I trust this guy?'. And he hasn't given us a good answer. He could. He could drop out of the Fox News CBCi debate. He could lead on Iraq. . . . There are many transformational 'bar fight' moments he could embrace. It's incumbent upon all Obama supporters to push him to do any of these things, so that he has a chance to become President and change the country. This country is crying out for change, and it's up to us to push our candidates to deliver it. We didn't do that in 2000 and 2004, and look where it got us.

Matt is right. So I have been saying since last July.

Image from BBC news.

The hunger strike at Guantanamo has resumed.

Force-feeding is painful.

The military's rationale for force-feeding?

"Because our policy is to preserve life."

Then why won't it take the death penalty off the table?

Another blast from the past: A special report by the Guardian on the mistreatment of detainees.

Embattled radio host Don Imus spent almost an hour of his show this morning (transcript here) apologizing again for his racist comments about the Rutgers women's basketball team.

As I facetiously suggested here, he's on the road to rehab. He's going to be on the Al Sharpton radio show this afternoon and meet with the Rutgers team.

Imus said he hoped to meet the Rutgers players and their parents and coaches, and he said he was grateful that he was scheduled to appear later Monday on a radio show hosted by the Rev. Al Sharpton, who has called for Imus to be fired over the remarks.

"It's not going to be easy, but I'm not looking for it to be easy," Imus said.

Update: Prior post here.

Crooks and Liars has the Imus-Sharpton audiofile.

Newsweek reports on the apparent looming indictment against Bernie Kerik, using non-public, law enforcement records of his phone calls, showing that around the time he withdrew his nomination as Homeland Security chief, he spoke several times with his one-time girlfriend, former prison guard Jeanette Pinero, and with New Jersey businessman Frank DiTommaso.

Kerik was in the midst of a civil lawsuit by another prison guard who alleged Bernie passed him over for promotion because of the guard's disputes with Pinero. That suit was later recently tossed by the judge. Some details about the connection between Kerik and diTommaso are here.

Who would leak the phone records, which I assume are matters before the grand jury and secret under Rule 6(e)? I doubt it's Bernie's side. It's possible grand jury witnesses were shown the records during their testimony ....but I doubt they would have received a copy to take home and then turn over to Newsweek.

More...

I can only chuckle at stories like this:

Is it too late to bring civility to the Web? The conversational free-for-all on the Internet known as the blogosphere can be a prickly and unpleasant place. Now, a few high-profile figures in high-tech are proposing a blogger code of conduct to clean up the quality of online discourse. Last week, Tim O’Reilly, a conference promoter and book publisher who is credited with coining the term Web 2.0, began working with Jimmy Wales, creator of the communal online encyclopedia Wikipedia, to create a set of guidelines to shape online discussion and debate.

The irony of Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia, whose online project has been used innumerable times in the most uncivil and unethical ways, preaching civility and control is the funniest thing I have read all day. I read the article and NO MENTION of Wikipedia's role in outing, false vicious attacks and general misbehaving is discussed. Here's my suggestion for Mr. Jimmy Wales, take care of the huge mess in your own house before you start doling out advice please.

Jeff Feldman, Ph. D., has written a book. The book was "reviewed" in the NYTimes by the ridiculous Eve Fairbanks of The New Republic. Dr. Feldman responds to the review:

Update [2007-4-9 11:54:52 by Big Tent Democrat]: Jack Balkin makes similar points with much less verbiage.

Linda Greenhouse yesterday wrote with seeming mirth about Chief Justice John Robert's biting dissent in the EPA/Global Warming case. In particular, Greenhouse appeared to enjoy Justice Stevens' invocation of federalism as a basis for granting standing to the petitioners:

In the majority opinion, Justice John Paul Stevens found five votes for the conclusion that Massachusetts not only met all three tests but was also entitled to special deference for its claim to standing because of its status as a sovereign state. Invoking no modern precedent — because there was none — to support this new theory of states’ rights, Justice Stevens deftly turned the court’s federalism revolution, which he has long opposed, on its head and provoked an objection from the chief justice. States have “no special rights or status” when it comes to standing, Chief Justice Roberts said.

While this is all just another manifestation of legal realism from all of the Justices, I do think it has some interesting implications that go beyond this discrete issue. I'll discuss why I think so on the flip.

As I think we all knew, it is becoming clear that the Pelosi in Syria "scandal" was trumped up by the White House. Josh Marshall does some legwork on the Israeli "clarification:"

Ron Kampeas of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency is another person who follows these issues closely and knows a lot about them -- that is to say, he doesn't approach these issues through the prism of reading Drudge or what the Vice President said on the Rush Limbaugh show. In any case, Kampeas takes a look at the story. It's a lengthy piece with a lot of important detail. But let me excerpt this section which touches on the issue of, again, what happened?

If that was the case, why did Olmert need to make a clarification, as Israelis were not speaking on the record. Lantos suggested there was pressure from the White House. "It's obvious the White House is desperate to find some phony criticism of the speaker's trip, even though it was a bipartisan trip," said Lantos, a Holocaust survivor who is considered the Democrat closest to the pro-Israel lobby. "I have nothing but contempt and disdain for the attempt to undermine this trip." The White House had no comment on the allegations by Lantos that it pressured Olmert to offer a clarification.

This was obvious to anyone with a brain I thought.

As President Bush turns his attention to immigration reform this week, his plans to overtax the undocumented drew thousands in protest this weekend.

As to his plan:

The White House's draft plan, leaked last week, calls for a new "Z" visa that would allow illegal immigrant workers to apply for three-year work permits. They would be renewable indefinitely, but would cost $3,500 each time.

Then to become legal permanent residents, illegal immigrants would have to return to their home country, apply at a U.S. Embassy or consulate to re-enter legally and pay a $10,000 fine.

In plain English, what's the difference between Bush and a coyote?

"Charging that much, Bush is going to be even more expensive than the coyotes," said Armando Garcia, 50, referring to smugglers who transport people across the Mexican border. "He will become the No. 1 coyote."