ROGER WATERS PLAYS 'Dark Side,' unleashes giant 'Vote Obama' pig.

Rawstory:

Waters' biggest prop was an inflatable pig the size of a school bus that emerged while he played a version of "Pigs" from 1977's capitalism critique, "Animals."

The pig, which was led above the crowd from lines held on the ground, displayed the words "Don't be led to the slaughter" and a cartoon of Uncle Sam wielding two bloody cleavers. The other side read "Fear builds walls."

The underside of the pig simply read "Obama" with a checked ballot box alongside.

House conservatives oppose bill that implements paper trail.

Thinkprogress:
A bill proposed by Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) to help states implement “a paper trail for voting machines so that voters could verify their vote and a recount could be performed” was stonewalled by conservatives in the House yesterday. Politico writes that when the bill “came up for a vote in the House Administration Committee on April 2, the Republicans on the committee gave it their unanimous support. But two weeks later, those same Republican members voted against moving the bill to the House floor.”

Incidentally this was after Bush sent out a letter opposing the bill. Surprise, surprise, Bush is against having transparent elections.

Siegelman: Rove 'hijacked' the Dept. of Justice to win elections

Rawstory:
In an extensive interview with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, who was released from prison on bond last month pending an appeal of his conviction on corruption charges, laid the blame for his prosecution squarely on Karl Rove's "hijacking" of the federal Department of Justice.

"This is not about me, it's not about my case," Siegelman emphasized in his appearance on Air America's Ring of Fire. "This is about America, and about a quest now that must be pursued to find out who was responsible for hijacking the Department of Justice and using it as a political tool to win elections. I believe that person that Congress will ultimately hold responsible is Karl Rove."

VA Conceals Vet Suicide Figures From CBS To Downplay ‘Epidemic In Suicide’

Thinkprogress:
Yesterday marked the opening day of a class action lawsuit brought by Iraq and Afghanistan veterans against the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), arguing “that failure to provide care is manifesting itself in an epidemic of suicides” among veterans. The VA denies the charges, pointing to increased resources devoted to mental health.

Today, CBS News reports that the VA apparently concealed veteran suicide statistics, and fed the news organization faulty data for a story on the issue. The VA told CBS that there were 790 attempted suicides in all of 2007. Yet shortly after, the VA’s head of Mental Health, Dr. Ira Katz, wrote in an e-mail to the VA’s top media adviser that there were “about 1,000 suicide attempts per month among veterans we see in our medical facilities.”

We Have A Winner! Bush Gets Highest Gallup Disapproval Rating Ever

TPM:
President Bush has reached a new milestone: He now has the highest disapproval ratings ever of any president in the 70-year history of the Gallup poll.

The newest ratings: Approve 28%, Disapprove 69%. The previous high disapproval was held by Harry Truman during the depths of the Korean War in 1952, at 67%.

John McCain's Dirty Campaign

It's not surprising their shilling out trash like this. McCain has nothing to run on but making Americans afraid of Obama.

Huffingtonpost:

John McCain has repeatedly insisted in public that he wants to run a respectful campaign, but a recent fundraising email from his campaign suggests there will be nothing revolutionary about the Republican nominee's tactics this year.

McCain's deputy campaign manager, Christian Ferry, sent an email to donors today with the subject line: "Hamas Weighs In On U.S. Presidential Election." The email, which attacks Obama over his foreign policy stances, includes these paragraphs:

Barack Obama's foreign policy plans have even won him praise from Hamas leaders. Ahmed Yousef, chief political adviser to the Hamas Prime Minister said, "We like Mr. Obama and we hope he will win the election. He has a vision to change America."

We need change in America, but not the kind of change that wins kind words from Hamas, surrenders in Iraq and will hold unconditional talks with Iranian President Ahmadinejad.

The letter comes in response to this report of a Hamas leader speaking favorably about Barack Obama. The article -- though not the McCain campaign -- notes that Obama has condemned Hamas, repeatedly said that he would not meet with the terrorist organization, and also condemned former President Carter's decision to meet with Hamas leaders.

The New York Times exposes manipulative DoD propaganda racket

C&L:
Through newly obtained internal documents, The New York Times has uncovered an elaborate PR campaign run by the Pentagon that coached former military officials — or as they’re known on television, Serious Independent Military Experts — on how best to shill for Donald Rumsfeld during the fallout from the “General’s Revolt,” when numerous high-ranking retired Generals broke long standing tradition and began speaking out harshly against the former Secretary and his prosecution of the War in Iraq.

Kenneth Allard, a former NBC military analyst who has taught information warfare at the National Defense University, said the campaign amounted to a sophisticated information operation. “This was a coherent, active policy,” he said. […] It was, he said, “psyops on steroids”

GAO: U.S. has no plan to fight al Qaeda in Pakistan.

Thinkprogress:
The Government Accountability Office released a report today concluding that the United States has no plan to combat al Qaeda and other terrorist threats in Pakistan. The GAO found that “[t]errorists are still operating freely in Pakistan along the country’s Afghanistan border, despite the U.S. giving Pakistan more than $10.5 billion in military and economic aid.” In a glaring rebuke of President Bush’s terrorism policy, the report says that there is “no comprehensive plan” to “destroy the terrorist threat and close the safe haven in Pakistan,” and “al Qaeda had regenerated its ability to attack” the United States.

House files Bush contempt brief

AP:
Bush's Executive Privilege Claims Most Expansive Since Watergate, House Committee Says

House lawyers told U.S. District Judge John D. Bates that subpoenaed White House officials cannot simply skip hearings as Miers did during the committee's investigation. Further, they said, any documents or testimony believed to be covered by the privilege must be itemized for Congress' assessment.

National Lawyers Guild calls for Yoo’s disbarment.

Thinkprogress:
Today, the National Lawyers Guild — the “oldest and largest public interest/human rights bar organization in the United States” — called on Berkeley’s law school, Boalt Hall, to dismiss former Bush administration John Yoo, who is a law professor there. From the Guild’s statement:
In a memorandum written the same month George W. Bush invaded Iraq, Boalt Hall law professor John Yoo said the Department of Justice would construe US criminal laws not to apply to the President’s detention and interrogation of enemy combatants. According to Yoo, the federal statutes against torture, assault, maiming and stalking do not apply to the military in the conduct of the war. […]
“John Yoo’s complicity in establishing the policy that led to the torture of prisoners constitutes a war crime under the US War Crimes Act,” said National Lawyers Guild President Marjorie Cohn.
Congress should repeal the provision of the Military Commissions Act that would give Yoo immunity from prosecution for torture committed from September 11, 2001 to December 30, 2005. John Yoo should be disbarred and he should not be retained as a professor of law at one of the country’s premier law schools. John Yoo should be dismissed from Boalt Hall and tried as a war criminal.

Memo Shows Bush Administration Says to Hell with Fourth Amendment Rights

Alternet:
News that the Bush administration threw out the 4th Amendment after 9/11 is a sobering reminder of the lawlessness of its spying program.

News last week of former White House lawyer John Yoo's recently disclosed 2003 memo positing, among other things, that the president's authority as commander in chief allows him to override federal laws prohibiting "assault, maiming, and other crimes" against suspects in the "war on terror," was followed by a second revelation: an alarming footnote on page 8 referring to another secret memo, written shortly after 9/11, and, in the name of national security, dispensing with the Fourth Amendment.

BUSH'S 'PRINCIPAL' ADVISERS APPROVED TORTURE

Center for American Progress:
ABC News reported last night that President Bush's most senior and trusted advisers met in "dozens of top-secret talks and meetings in the White House" beginning in 2002 to approve the use of "combined" interrogation techniques." These "top-secret" meetings were chaired by then National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice and included Vice President Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, George Tenet, and John Ashcroft. The tactics the group approved included how detainees "would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding." Former Justice Department official John Yoo wrote an infamous torture memo that signed off on these measures as long as they did not lead to "organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or death." ABC News did note, however, that both Powell and Ashcroft were troubled by the meetings and how these decisions would affect the image of the United States, but that Rice was not swayed by their concerns. Ashcroft reportedly said, "History will not judge this kindly."

Comment from the ACLU:
"With each new revelation, it is beginning to look like the torture operation was managed and directed out of the White House," ACLU legislative director Caroline Fredrickson said. "This is what we suspected all along."

BUSH US ATTORNEY TARGETED MY WIFE & FRIENDS, MISSISSIPPI JUSTICE SAYS

Rawstory:
Republican effort jails largest Democratic donor in Mississippi, helps put ex-RNC chairman in governor's chair

In an exclusive interview with RAW STORY, a former Mississippi Republican state legislator who was later backed by Democrats to win a seat on the Mississippi Supreme Court discussed political prosecutions and what he sees as the corruption and politicization of the Department of Justice.

Book: McCain temper boiled over in '92 tirade, called wife a 'cunt'

Rawstory:
The Real McCain by Cliff Schecter, which will arrive in bookstores next month, reports an angry exchange between McCain and his wife that happened in full view of aides and reporters during a 1992 campaign stop.

Three reporters from Arizona, on the condition of anonymity, also let me in on another incident involving McCain's intemperateness. In his 1992 Senate bid, McCain was joined on the campaign trail by his wife, Cindy, as well as campaign aide Doug Cole and consultant Wes Gullett. At one point, Cindy playfully twirled McCain's hair and said, "You're getting a little thin up there." McCain's face reddened, and he responded, "At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt." McCain's excuse was that it had been a long day. If elected president of the United States, McCain would have many long days.

18 States Sue Do-Nothing EPA Over Global Warming

AP:
Officials of 18 states are taking the EPA back to court to try to force it to comply with a Supreme Court ruling that rebuked the Bush administration for inaction on global warming.

In a petition prepared for filing Wednesday, the plaintiffs said last April's 5-4 ruling required the Environmental Protection Agency to decide whether to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, including carbon dioxide, from motor vehicles.

The EPA has instead done nothing, they said.

"The EPA's failure to act in the face of these incontestable dangers is a shameful dereliction of duty," Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley said.

Top Bush Administration officials pressured underlings to use torture tactics at Guantanamo

Rawstory:
"Torture at Guantánamo was sanctioned by the most senior advisers to the president, the vice president, and the secretary of defense, according to the international lawyer and professor of law at University College London Philippe Sands, who has conducted a forensic examination of the chain of command leading from the top of the administration to the camp at Guantánamo," Vanity Fair will report on newstands today.

USA 2008: The Great Depression

Independent UK:
Food stamps are the symbol of poverty in the US. In the era of the credit crunch, a record 28 million Americans are now relying on them to survive – a sure sign the world's richest country faces economic crisis