President Obama has released some details of his proposed health care plan. While providing health insurance for all (with a hardship waiver for those that can't afford it, he's also proposing major cuts to Medicare and Medicaid:

[H]e'd like to squeeze an additional $200 billion to $300 billion over 10 years from the Medicare and Medicaid government insurance programs for the elderly, disabled and poor.

He said he'd do it through such measures as better managing chronic diseases and avoiding unnecessary tests and hospital readmissions. Savings from such measures are uncertain.

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The BBC has an interesting article about a program in France in which 194 prison inmates are about to take off on a 1,500 mile bicycle tour that ends in Paris. They will be accompanied by 124 guards.

The goal: To get the inmates "back in the saddle," and learn "team work and self-esteem."

There's a video showing them training for the race.

They will have to cycle in a pack, will not be ranked and, for obvious reasons, breakaway sprints will not be allowed.

According to a prison official:

"We want to show them that with some training, you can achieve your goals and start a new life,"

Two years ago, TalkLeft called attention to Chicago Police Officer Anthony Abbate's videotaped beating of a female bartender, one of a series of violent incidents involving Chicago cops in bars that led to the resignation of the city's police superintendent. Abbate was charged with aggravated battery, a crime carrying a potential five year sentence. On Tuesday, Judge John Fleming rejected Abbate's claim of self defense and found him guilty. Judge Fleming acquitted Abbate of official misconduct because it was undisputed that Abbate never identified himself as a police officer.

Abbate is 6'1" and weighs in at 250. It's easy to understand the judge's reluctance to believe he appropriately defended himself by throwing the bartender, Karolina Obrycka, to the ground before repeatedly punching and kicking her. Obrycka is 5'3" and weighs 125 pounds.[more ...]

“Cuba is the only country in the hemisphere that repudiates nearly all forms of political dissent. For nearly five decades, the Cuban government has enforced political conformity with criminal prosecutions, long- and short-term detentions, mob harassment, physical abuse and surveillance.” - Human Rights Watch

A NYTimes editorial quoted this Human Rights Watch description in criticizing the campaign to readmit Cuba to the Organization of American States (OAS). The Times wrote "we are absolutely puzzled and dismayed by this week’s frenzied push by many Latin American countries to readmit Cuba to the Organization of American States." I find it neither puzzling nor dismaying. Arguing for Cuba has always been an easy domestic political move in Latin American countries. It is all meaningless. Indeed, I urge readmittance of Cuba to the OAS so that this empty political device can be finally defanged. Then we can concentrate on what the Times urges - "[T]he O.A.S. must press Havana to join the democratic mainstream — and its errant members to adhere to the organization’s own democratic charter." Get the excuses (like the US embargo) out of the way so we can talk about the REAL issue in Cuba - its totalitarian regime.

Speaking for me only

This story has the feel of an urban legend, except it happens to be true. A high school student in Tacoma, Washington surely attained legendary status in the eyes of his fellow students with this stunt:

At the end of his speech Tuesday urging legalization of marijuana, a 17-year-old Peninsula High School student pulled out a joint, lit it and smoked away. Then he ate the remains.

Priceless.

The investigation of the Philadelphia Police Department's Narcotics Field Unit began with allegations that Narcotics Officer Jeffrey Cujdik repeatedly fabricated evidence to support his sworn applications for search warrants.

The scandal expanded in March after the Daily News reported that Cujdik, [Thomas] Tolstoy and other officers disabled surveillance cameras during raids of mom-and-pop stores that sold tiny ziplock bags, which police consider drug paraphernalia. After the officers cut or yanked the wires, thousands of dollars in cash and merchandise went missing, the merchants said.

A third layer of scandal is unfolding as Internal Affairs and the FBI investigate at least three independent complaints that Officer Tolstoy fondled and groped women during drug raids while commenting upon (and asking to see) their breasts. Tolstoy has been placed on desk duty pending the outcome of the investigation.

The hubbub about the ignorant attacks on unions on the crazy morning show put on by MSNBC reminded me of the letter the self proclaimed "liberal" Mika Brzezinski sent to the NYTimes:

. . . This liberal thinks The New York Times should follow Joe Scarborough’s example of speaking truth to power — regardless of which party is in power.

Mika Brzezinski
New York, May 11, 2009

Of course Brzezinski's actual role on Crazy Joe's morning show is to play Alan Colmes to Joe's Sean Hannity. And she plays the role to perfection.

Speaking for me only

I just found this cool site about prison photography among TalkLeft's twitter followers. This is clearly an art site, with a viewpoint. The site's objectives:

To bring to attention things previously unsaid.

To bring attention to things said but unrecorded.

To present a consistent textual and visual editorial voice, to which I am held accountable.

To highlight pre-internet work (digitally unpublished) and give it some exposure.

To joust in the melee of contested meanings in surveillance, fine-art, documentary, amateur, institution, and virtual photographies of prisons and other sites of incarceration.

Hope you check it out.

As Republicans struggle to invent a reason -- any reason -- to oppose the confirmation of Judge Sotomayor, they've seized a snippet of a speech she once gave to claim the judge "will let her personal background and experiences influence her opinions from the bench." This attack makes sense only if you believe that all the Republican-appointed judges since the Reagan administration were selected without considering whether their backgrounds and experiences tended to make their judicial philosophies pro-business and pro-Republican. Do you?

Instead of confronting the Republican hypocrisy (and how often do Democrats in the Senate bother with that?), Senator Leahy is playing the game by asserting that Judge Sotomayor will "follow the law" without regard to her upbringing (or, presumably, her gender or national origin). Of course, if "the law" is clear and easily followed, the Supreme Court isn't likely to weigh in on the law's meaning. It is when a statute is ambiguous or precedent provides no clear answer that Supreme Court Justices are called upon to clarify the law. All nine Justices believe they are "following the law" when they vote in 5-4 decisions, but the dissenters follow it to a different conclusion than the Justices who comprise the majority. [more ...]

BTD is in court today and I've got to make my powerpoint presentation for this weekend's NORML Aspen Legal Seminar. My topic: "High Hopes and Modest Expectations: Drug Law Reform under President Obama and a Democratic Congress." The rest of the agenda is here.

For lighter fare, here's Joe Biden at the beach. Yes, Obama looks better shirtless.

Update: Thanks to TChris, there will be some updates today, so do check back.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

No one cared about the "sin tax" on cigarette smokers. Will they care about a proposed tax on alcohol and sugary soda? Probably.

Besides alcohol, drinks with sugar, high fructose corn syrup and similar sweeteners would be targeted, though diet drinks with artificial sweeteners would not. Other industries also are on alert, worried that the idea of "lifestyle taxes" could spread to other products deemed unhealthy.

"Are they going to hit couch manufacturers? School districts that have canceled physical education?" joked Neil Trautwein, health care lobbyist for the National Retail Federation, which opposes the plan and whose members include fast-food restaurants.

[More...]

Al-Jazeera reports that Osama bin Laden has released a tape critical of the U.S. and President Barack Obama.

It reported Bin Laden as saying that Obama was continuing in the steps of his predecessor, George Bush, and warning Americans to be prepared for the consequences of the White House's policies.

News of the recording came after Obama arrived in Saudi Arabia at a start of a trip that will also take him to Egypt, where he will deliver an eagerly awaited speech at Cairo University.

The New York Times has more details: [More...]