by TChris

Pearl Jam joins Neil Young, the Dixie Chicks, and the Rolling Stones with a song of protest.

World Wide Suicide, already frying the airwaves with indignation, is a stormy anti-war rant tailor-made for Eddie Vedder's howling rasp.

Here's a review of the album. (Update: Alert readers called attention to the omission of Pink's protest song. If you've heard other recent protest songs, feel free to list them in the comments.)

Former mayor Rudy Giuliani campaigned in Iowa today. He said if he thinks he can win, he will run for President in 2008.

It's time to get his history out in the blogosphere. The man is not qualified. People think he is some sort of hero because he didn't fall apart during 9/11. He is not. He was a prosecutor who loved putting people in jail and a Mayor who trounced the downtrodden.

How low can he go? A new CBS poll finds Bush's approval rating at his lowest ever, 33%.

Only 33 percent approve of his job performance, Mr. Bush's lowest approval rating yet in CBS News polls. A majority - 58 percent of those polled - say they disapprove of the president. Mr. Bush appears to be losing support from his own party. His approval rating among Republicans has dropped to 68 percent.

Complete poll results are here. (pdf)

Accused Duke Lacrosse player Reade Seligman's lawyer filed a motion (pdf) today seeking recusal of the DA. It's a great motion, you should read the whole thing. It lays out the undisputed and disputed evidence, has new details, and alleges the D.A. was motivated by the primary election which is being held tomorrow and a desire to claim the national spotlight.

The motion also alleges he improperly injected himself in the lineup, causing the Durham Police Department to violate their own procedures which are embodied in a police department order.

Back in February, we wrote about Larisa Alexandrovna's article at Raw Story reporting that at the time Valerie Plame was outed in July, 2003 by Robert Novak, "she was part of an operation tracking distribution and acquisition of weapons of mass destruction technology to and from Iran." Larisa described the import:

The revelation that Iran was the focal point of Plame's work raises new questions as to possible other motivating factors in the White House's decision to reveal the identity of a CIA officer working on tracking a WMD supply network to Iran, particularly when the very topic of Iran's possible WMD capability is of such concern to the Administration.

Today on Hardball, MSNBC reporter David Schuster confirms that Plame was working on Iran. Crooks and Liars has the video.

Here's downtown Denver this morning, taken by 5280's Jeff Panis. Larger version here. Update: Police estimate the crowd at 75,000 and stretched for a mile. That's huge for a city the size of Denver.

Tom Tancredo is stewing today. As I wrote over at 5280 this morning:

by TChris

States from time to time attempt to craft their rules of evidence or procedure, either legislatively or judicially, to make the prosecution's case easier to prove while disadvantaging criminal defendants. Like many states, South Carolina has a rule limiting the circumstances under which a defendant can introduce evidence that a third party is actually the guilty culprit. The South Carolina Supreme Court expanded that rule by disallowing evidence of third party guilt when there is strong forensic evidence pointing to the defendant's guilt.

In a unanimous opinion authored by its newest Justice, the U.S. Supreme Court today reversed the conviction of Bobby Lee Holmes. Criminal defendants have a constitutional right to present a defense, and while that right may be balanced against reasonable rules of evidence and procedure, South Carolina went too far in its attempt to rig the system in the prosecution's favor. The South Carolina court assumed that the forensic evidence was so strong as to negate the evidence that someone else was guilty, but didn't seem to notice the defense evidence that substantially weakened the probative value of the forensic evidence.

Time Magazine explores the gas price crisis and notes the irony -- I'd call it hypocrisy -- of Bush now blaming it on the oil companies.

Who's suffering? Consumers, airlines, Detroit, truckers and Fedex, to name a few.

Who's profiting? The oil companies, oil-field-service firms, oil workers, petroleum engineers and geologists, oil traders in New York City's Mercantile Exchange -- and Iran and Venezuela:

The Washington Post reports on Blogads' survey of political blogreaders. It's not the 20-something crowd.

In an unscientific Web survey of 36,000 people, Blogads reported that political blog readers tend to be age 41 to 50, male (72 percent), and earn $60,000 to $90,000 per year. Two in five have college degrees, while just a tad less have graduate degrees.

The full survey results can be found here. TalkLeft's results are here. What do the results mean?

Millions of immigrants across the United States will take a sick day from work and school to peacefully march in protest of Congress' ill-conceived and overly punitive immigration reform proposals and to demand the recognition that is due them as an indispensable part of our labor force. This is not unprecedented in our country's history.

On May 1, 1886, workers in the U.S., many of them immigrants, took to the streets to protest oppressive working conditions. Over the course of the next several days, there was bloodshed and repressive police tactics, but thereafter, all workers in the U.S. incurred the benefits of an 8 hour, 5 day workweek, the right to unionize and other needed protections.

Today there will be rallies, boycotts and work closures. What do the marchers and protesters want? As NNIR puts it,

[They are] demanding recognition as indispensable members of U.S. society, with the right to living wages, safe working conditions and protections. They want the same rights as any other member of the U.S.: the right to travel, work, live, study and worship freely and safely, and to reunite their families without discrimination and violence.

Check it out...GAG by KATS

Bush and Cheney, war, oil, the CIA and lots more...listen to the whole thing.

It's easy to see why we love Gangsta rap
Look at America, who's more Gangsta than that

The episode tonight is JohnnyCakes.

Tony is tempted by a real-estate offer; Vito is wowed by an act of heroism; AJ looks to "diversify."

I thought last week's episode was just so-so. Maybe that's because the two weeks before that were so good. I suspect A.J. will get into big problems tonight.

Let us know what you think of tonight's show.