A three judge panel in California has issued a "scathing" 184 page opinion ordering California to reduce its prison population by 40,000 within two years.

The judges said that reducing prison crowding in California was the only way to change what they called an unconstitutional prison health care system that causes one unnecessary death a week. In a scathing 184-page order, the judges criticized state officials, saying they had failed to comply with previous orders to fix the health care system in the prisons and reduce crowding, and recommended remedies, including reform of the parole system.

How bad are prison conditions? [More...]

Steve Clemons seems to think so:

Bill Clinton has now secured pardons from Kim Jong Il for the two journalists who he has now met with -- but more importantly, Clinton has engaged directly with North Korea President Kim Jong Il and this may steady things in Northeast Asia for a bit. As one observer told me today, engaging Kim directly matters and prevents the complex filters around him from distorting and derailing earnest efforts to get the relationship pointed in a more constructive direction. Former Japan Prime Minister Koizumi learned this through two direct meetings with Kim, and the Chinese and South Koreans also have learned that direct engagement with the North Korean leader produces radically different results than dealing with the bureaucratic minions around him.

Clinton may have just given North Korea a "face-saving way" back to negotiations in the Six Party Talks -- and North Korea may have found a valuable informal back channel to both President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton to partially sate its own yearning for direct bilateral talks with the United States that America can't endorse given other stakeholders in Northeast Asia committed to a six party process.

Interesting take. Not sure I buy it, but here's hoping.

Media Matters:

Economist Laffer on CNN: "[J]ust wait till you see Medicare [and] Medicaid ... done by the government"

Sheesh. There's that "Birther logic" at work again.

In the comments, andgarden makes a good point - Arthur Laffer will turn 69 on August 14. Does he have "government run health insurance" (aka Medicare)? If so, is he not aware it is government run health care and if he is just now becoming aware of that fact, will he be buying private insurance?

Speaking for me only

UPDATE: Kim "Pardons" Journalists. Hope to be flying back home tonight.

This is pretty interesting:

Sources told ABC News that Clinton's trip [to North Korea], while a surprise to some, was planned weeks ago and that it was former Vice President Al Gore who asked Clinton to go.

Gore's involvement is more than understandable. Good for Clinton and Gore working together on this. Of course, some folks can't get over their Clinton hate.

Speaking for me only

Sam Stein writes:

The White House and allied Democrats are ramping up efforts to make belligerent anti-Obama town hall crowds -- and the media outlets that feed their resentment -- the face of opposition to the president's health care agenda, aides tell the Huffington Post.

Not a bad idea. It is the White House that can do this too. Hell, link them to the birthers. Here is the real question though - how do you treat the Media on this one? I have always been one who thinks that mau-mau-ing them always works.

Update - Here is Gibbs executing the strategy.

Speaking for me only

Your turn.

This is an Open Thread.

The Red State heads are exploding today:

Sotomayor: Qualified, mainstream Judicial confirmation hearings weren't always ideological witch hunts.

By Pat Toomey

. . . If I were a U.S. senator, I would vote for her confirmation, because objective qualifications should matter more than ideology in the judicial confirmation process.

(Emphasis supplied.) Once Specter became a Dem, giving Toomey a clear field on the GOP slate in Pennsylvania, his rush to the Center was inevitable (just as Specter's move left is a result of a primary challenge by Joe Sestak.) This is the reverse of Charlie Crist's run to the right in Florida, an inevitable consequence of the challenge from the extreme right by Florida state senator Rubio. Pols are pols . . . Oh BTW, and primaries are, as always disciplining functions for pols. Whether the primary is successful or not.

Speaking for me only

Atrios:

I think Obama's a smart talented guy whose instincts mostly point him in the right direction. I also think he's a smart talented guy who has, for whatever reason, tended to have opposition melt away when he pointed at them.

Atrios' implicit question is can Obama fight? Specifically can he fight effectively for health care reform? He certainly won the Democratic nomination in a tough and close battle with now Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. But did then candidate Obama shine in that fight? Did he outfight Clinton in the second half of the primary battle? Not really. Atrios poses a good question.

Speaking for me only

It starts today at 10 am EST. You can watch it on C-Span2 or online here.

I believe a vote is scheduled for the end of the day tomorrow. The Sotomayor nomination should capture around 66 Aye votes - 58 Dems (assuming Kennedy and Byrd vote), 2 Independents and 6 Republicans (Graham, Lugar, Snowe, Collins, Alexander and Martinez) though I suppose Voinovich of Ohio may also vote Aye. 34 Republicans will likely vote No for the first Latina nominee to the Court.

While the Dem blogs are intent on dismissing the Tea Party/Health Care protests as astro-turfing, I think the more interesting question is why the Media thinks these protests matter as opposed to say, the hundreds of thousands who protested the Iraq War? Indeed, as late as September 2007, the Washington Post was referring to war protesters as "the vocal minority."

Of course by 2007, opponents of the war were clearly the majority in the country. The 2006 election was proof of that. So how come a few dozen protesters (astro-turf or not) at selected town halls held by Congresspersons around the country is supposed to mean anything at all?

Proving yet again that Media's problem is not mainly bias, but rather the problem is its incompetence.

Speaking for me only

Former President Bill Clinton has arrived in North Korea where he will attempt to negotiate for the release of Laura Ling and Euna Lee, two Current TV reporters jailed and sentenced to 12 years of hard labor.

Will he succeed?

Scott Snyder, a North Korea expert for the nonprofit Asia Foundation, said Clinton's standing as a world statesman carried weight with Pyongyang.
"The North Koreans have a lot of nostalgia for the end of the Clinton administration," he said.

"The question is going to be how could he go to Pyongyang without some assurance that they would be released," Snyder said. "For someone at his level to go without a prior assurance of some kind would be to risk a huge loss of face."

I think he'll do it. He rocks.

While waiting for Weeds to start, my TV remote landed on ABC and a concert by Sugarland, who I think are great. They were singing Genevieve,the song in the video above, and I couldn't believe how much it sounded like Long Black Veil. The chords, the tempo, everything. The singing starts at 35 seconds in. Check out the three versions of Long Black Veil below, one with Johnny Cash, one with The Band, and one with Bruce Springsteen: [More...]