LAW AND DISORDER

NUMBER OF THE DAY: Bernard Madoff’s Prisoner Number is 61727-054. He has been sent to the federal prison in Atlanta for processing. That’s the place that once housed Charles Ponzi, the man after whom the Ponzi scheme was named, but also such giants of dissent as Socialist Party leader Eugene Victor Debs and black internationalist Marcus Garvey. He is expected to be moved to the prison in Buitner, North Carolina which has a hospital. (Rumor is he may have cancer) He was slated to be released on Nov. 14, 2139, 20 years less than scheduled.

SONIA ON THE STAND, DOESN’T TAKE MANY STANDS

THERE IS NO JOY IN BEANTOWN–THE DREAM IS DONE:
CBS PULLS PLUG ON WBCN IN BOSTON
A STATION IT PULLED THE PLUG ON YEARS AGO WHEN IT WASN”T
EXPLOITING IT OR TORTURING IT. DETAILS AT ELEVEN.

It was another Satomayor day, but there was some motion on health care reform. The Financial Times ALSO tells us “Pay at Goldman Sachs GS this year is set to beat the boom levels enjoyed before the financial crisis, with thousands of employees on track to earn a record $770,000 (553,000) each on average in spite of the recession. How many of them will contribute to a fund for the poor?

SONIA ON THE STAND, DAY TWO

Senator Leahy asks her to ecplain that “wise Latina” remark. Responded the Wise Latina: “I want to state upfront, unequivocally, and without doubt, I do not believe that any racial or ethnic group has an advantage in sound judging.”

“My record shows that at no point or time have I ever permitted my personal views or sympathies to influence the outcome of a case,” the appeals court judge declared during a tense exchange with Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the top Republican on the committee that is conducting this week’s confirmation hearings. He repeatedly questioned her ability to be objective as a Supreme Court justice, citing her own comments in speeches. (Check out Sen Session’s record on race and objectivity!)

Sotomayor backed away from perhaps the most damaging words that had been brought up since Obama nominated her seven weeks ago — a 2001 comment suggesting that a “wise Latina” judge would usually reach better conclusions than a white man. She called the remark “a rhetorical flourish that fell flat.”

“It was bad because it left an impression that I believed that life experiences commanded a result in a case, but that’s clearly not what I do as a judge,” Sotomayor said.

She goes back to the Hill for another day of Senatorial ventilation.under the bright lights. The ritual goes on.

AIR TRAGEDY: An Iranian passenger plane crashed Wednesday in northwest Iran, killing all 168 people on board, state media reported

HEALTH CARE REFORM?

House Proposes Bill to Make Healthcare a Right

The Presidents demands a bill and action before August when Congress goes into recess. “Don’t bet against us,” he says. But critics like David Lindorff fear, “…real health care reform of the kind that Democratic candidates
were promising during last year’s presidential campaign is dead, killed
by the timidity of the promiser-in-chief, President Barack Obama (and
by the massive corruption of the Democrats in Congress, who hav e
accepted the tainted coin of the health care industry).

OP-ED NEWS: Not only is the insurance industry gutting the bill but also some of the coverage of it: E Nelson writes on OP ED NEWS:

The program “Sick Around America” which was produced by PBS with the help of investigative reporter T.R. Reid ultimately ran on March 31st, 2009 but in a significantly altered form from what TR Reid had intended. The health insurance lobbying group “America’s Health Insurance Plans” (AHIP), after being confronted by some of the realities of the program, like hundred’s of thousands of Americans being bankrupted and 20,000 Americans dying each year because of no health coverage, denial of coverage, or rescission of coverage, was rumored to have applied editorial pressure on the final aired piece. According to T.R. Reid in a conversation with Russell Mokhiber, editor of Corporate Crime Reporter the final piece was altered to reflect insurance company interests. T.R. Reid was ultimately cut out of the film by PBS and his conclusions were removed from the end of the film even though he had done all the reporting.

The Man Who Knew Cheney’s Secret: Sy Hersh Vindicated (DB)

The New Yorker’s Seymour Hersh was mocked in March when he referred to Dick Cheney’s secret squad of CIA assassins. Now, he talks to The Daily Beast about the next shoe to drop.

Reporting legend Seymour Hersh raised eyebrows back in March when he told an audience at the University of Minnesota that Dick Cheney ran a secret hit squad that he kept hidden from Congressional oversight.

“Congress has no oversight of it. It’s an executive assassination ring essentially, and it’s been going on and on and on,” Hersh said at the time. He added: “Under President Bush’s authority, they’ve been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving. That’s been going on, in the name of all of us.”

“I said what I said, they can always say what they say,” Hersh told The Daily Beast. “The last time they said the government doesn’t torture, this time it’s the government doesn’t assassinate.”

Some observers accused him of rumor-mongering and a top former military official threw cold water on the story, but with the recent news that the CIA allegedly kept Congress in the dark on a covert program, Hersh’s words suddenly look more and more prescient. Yesterday, the New York Times reported the hidden program in question was a death squad authorized by Dick Cheney without Congressional approval-almost exactly what he described.