Philip Rucker & Eli Saslow | July 3

WaPo - Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) announced this afternoon she will resign from office on July 26 and return to private life, a stunning decision by last year's Republican vice presidential candidate to leave office before the end of her first term.

"We know we can effect positive change outside government at this moment in time on another scale and actually make a difference for our priorities," Palin said in a news conference alongside a lake in her hometown of Wasilla, Alaska.

Using a basketball analogy, Palin said, "I know when it's time to pass the ball for victory."

Palin, 45, is a major star in the GOP and is seen as a leading candidate for the party's presidential nomination in 2012.

Daniel Nasaw | Washington | July 1

The Guardian - A US army panel has recommended an Arabic linguist and Iraq veteran be discharged from the military for declaring on television that he is gay.

The army accused Lieutenant Dan Choi, 28, of violating the "don't ask, don't tell" policy that bars homosexuals from serving openly in the military. Choi, a graduate of the elite West Point military academy, served a tour in Iraq as an infantry officer, translator and Arabic language instructor. He announced in March on a popular liberal television chat show that he is gay, setting up a confrontation.

The panel today recommended that the US army withdraw Choi's federal recognition as an officer, a move that would end his military career, said Lieutenant Colonel Paul Fanning, a spokesman for the New York army national guard, Choi's command.

"It is firing based on identity, purely discriminatory based on my identity," Choi said. "If I had said 'no, I'm sorry, I'm actually straight but those statements were a lie and I'm sorry,' then I had a good chance of being retained."

O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave, my ass

Kevin G. Hall | Washington, DC | June 29

McClatchy - In a rebuke of the Bush administration, the Supreme Court ruled Monday that a federal bank regulator erred in quashing efforts by New York state to combat the kind of predatory mortgage lending that triggered the nation's financial crisis.

The 5-4 ruling by the high court was unusual. Justice Antonin Scalia, arguably the most conservative jurist, wrote the majority's opinion and was joined by the court's four liberal judges.

The five justices held that contrary to what the Bush administration had argued, states can enforce their own laws on matters such as discrimination and predatory lending, even if that crosses into areas under federal regulation.

“We very much want to work with others to make sure that we have … as pro-American a tax system for corporations as we possibly can …” Lawrence Summers

The Administration is struggling to fund its spending spree in ways that would nominally be consistent with the President’s campaign promises. The Obama budget proposed to inflict two substantial tax increases on U.S. corporations with global operations. One would make it more expensive to bring cash from those operations into the U.S. The other would make it expensive (on average 30% more expensive) to pay Americans, rather than citizens of any other country, to perform headquarters administrative jobs such as accounting, IT, or HR. These proposals were supposedly aimed at fulfilling the promise to “end tax breaks for shipping jobs overseas”. While they hurt companies with global operations, it is hard to see how they would do anything other than reduce U.S. jobs.

Gareth Porter | June 22(UPDATED) | IPS

On Jun. 25, 1996, a massive truck bomb exploded at a building in the Khobar Towers complex in Khobar, Saudi Arabia, which housed U.S. Air Force personnel, killing 19 U.S. airmen and wounding 372.

Immediately after the blast, more than 125 agents from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) were ordered to the site to sift for clues and begin the investigation of who was responsible. But when two U.S. embassy officers arrived at the scene of the devastation early the next morning, they found a bulldozer beginning to dig up the entire crime scene.

PART 2: Saudi Account of Khobar Bore Telltale Signs of Fraud
PART 3: U.S. Officials Leaked a False Story Blaming Iran
PART 4: FBI Ignored Compelling Evidence of bin Laden Role
PART 5: Freeh Became "Defence Lawyer" for Saudis on Khobar

June 24

Stars and Stripes - Asserting that Stars and Stripes “refused to highlight” good news in Iraq that the U.S. military wanted to emphasize, Army officials have barred a Stripes reporter from embedding with a unit of the 1st Cavalry Division that is attempting to secure the violent city of Mosul.

Officials said Stripes reporter Heath Druzin, who covered operations of the division’s 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team in February and March, would not be permitted to rejoin the unit for another reporting tour because, among other things, he wrote in a March 8 story that many Iraqi residents of Mosul would like the American soldiers to leave and hand over security tasks to Iraqi forces.

“Despite the opportunity to visit areas of the city where Iraqi Army leaders, soldiers, national police and Iraqi police displayed commitment to partnership, Mr. Druzin refused to highlight any of this news,” Major Ramona Bellard, a public affairs officer, wrote in denying Druzin’s embed request.

Tim Molloy | June 23

TV Guide -

Television legend Ed McMahon, who's booming "Heeeere's Johnny" was a fixture of late-night TV for three decades and who thrived as a Tonight Show sidekick and jolly host of his own shows, has died. He was 86.

McMahon's longtime friend and publicist, Howard Bragman, confirmed the death Tuesday. The actor had been plagued with health problems for years, and in February was hospitalized with pneumonia. Bragman declined to confirm reports at the time that McMahon was also battling bone cancer.

Much of his skill was in making other people look good. In an interview with TVGuide.com in October, he recalled how Johnny Carson was known for shyness when they started working together on the Tonight Show in 1962 — a partnership that would last 30 years. But McMahon successfully drew him out.

"He had a privacy, and with the right group around him, he was fine," McMahon said. "As he said to me, he said, 'I'm great in front of 10 million, I'm lousy in front of ten."

McMahon's "Heeeere's Johnny" introduction became one of the most imitated in America — most notably by Jack Nicholson's character in the1980 horror film The Shining. But McMahon himself cheerfully obliged requests that he repeat or alter the phrase, even amending it to "Heeeere's Money" for an ad in which he and MC Hammer invited people to sell their gold for cash.

Nicholas D Kristof | NYT

Growing up on a farm near Yamhill, Ore., I quickly learned to appreciate the difference between fresh, home-grown foods and the commercial versions in the supermarket.

...

I’ve often criticized America’s health care system, and I fervently hope that we’re going to see a public insurance option this year. But one reason for our health problems is our industrialized agriculture system, and that should be under scrutiny as well.

A terrific new documentary, “Food, Inc.,” playing in cinemas nationwide, offers a powerful and largely persuasive diagnosis of American agriculture. Go see it, but be warned that you may not want to eat for a week afterward.

(It was particularly unnerving to see leftover animal bits washed over with ammonia and ground into “hamburger filler.” If you happen to be eating a hamburger as you read this, I apologize.)

Josh Meyer | Washington | June 23

LA Times - The Bush administration plan to use satellites for domestic surveillance is reportedly axed after state and local officials say they have higher priorities.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has decided to kill a controversial Bush administration program to use U.S. spy satellites to collect domestic intelligence for counter-terrorism, law enforcement and security, a senior Homeland Security official said Monday evening.

The National Applications Office program was established in 2007 to provide up-to-the-minute electronic intelligence to local and state law enforcement. But it has been delayed due to concerns by privacy and civil liberties advocates -- and by some lawmakers -- that it would intrude on Americans' lives.

The senior Homeland Security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the program is classified, said Napolitano had decided to nix it after consulting with state and local law enforcement officials and learning that they had far more pressing priorities than using satellites to collect information and eavesdrop on people.

Warren Richey | Washington | June 23

CSM - Civil rights activists praise the court for not throwing out a key provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

The US Supreme Court's 8-to-1 decision on the Voting Rights Act Monday represented an apparent compromise – resolving a broad legal challenge to the landmark law without undercutting the main force of it.

The high court ruled that a small utility district in Texas was eligible for an exemption from mandated federal oversight of its local elections.

That new, more expansive, interpretation of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act allowed the high court to sidestep a much larger constitutional challenge that loomed over the case – and over the high court itself.

Analysts had suggested the Supreme Court was poised to use the case to strike down a key portion of the voting-rights law. Civil rights leaders warned of dire consequences for the nation.

** More districts can sue to bail out of Voting Rights Act

Say it ain't so! Kodak announced on Monday that they are discontinuing Kodachrome film.

Farewell, red-eyed friends of our past... - Crooks and Liars

Lena H. Sun & Lyndsey Layton | Washington | June 23

WaPo -

A Metro train struck another train on the same Red Line track at the height of the evening rush hour yesterday, killing at least six and injuring at least 70 in the deadliest accident in Metrorail's 33-year-history. One of the dead was the operator of the train that rear-ended another stopped in front of it just outside the Fort Totten station in Northeast Washington, Metro officials said.

The impact was so powerful that the trailing train was left atop the first train. Of those injured, at least six were in critical condition. Firefighters had to use heavy rescue equipment to cut open the cars to reach people trapped inside. D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) said fire officials were going through the trains last night to make sure they had recovered all the bodies.

Metro and rescue officials gave no details about the operator who died or the other fatalities.

NYT: Pictures

Michael Doyle | Washington | June 20

McClatchy - President Barack Obama is morphing into George W. Bush, as administration attorneys repeatedly adopt the executive-authority and national-security rationales that their Republican predecessors preferred.

In courtroom battles and freedom-of-information fights from Washington, D.C., to California, Obama's legal arguments repeatedly mirror Bush's: White House turf is to be protected, secrets must be retained and dire warnings are wielded as weapons.

"It's putting up a veritable wall around the White House, and it's so at odds with Obama's campaign commitment to more open government," said Anne Weismann, chief counsel for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a legal watchdog group.

1) Lower the medicaid coverage rate from 150% to 100% of the Federal poverty line, 133% for kids and pregnant women (once you have the baby, too bad for you)
2) Subsidies stop at 300% of the poverty line (was 400%)
3) No Public Option mentioned
4) Insurance exchanges at the State level
5) Must buy insurance unless it costs more than 15% of your income
6) A fine if you don’t buy insurance unless you’re below the Federal poverty line

For the most part, as Walker discusses, this is about the same as or worse than the plan put forward by America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP). Yes, worse than the insurance industry's plan. Remarkable. Baucus is really earning his campaign donations these days.

read the rest at Ian's

Robert Barnes | June 19

WaPo - Prisoners do not have a constitutional right to DNA testing after their conviction, the Supreme Court ruled yesterday, even though the technology provides an “unparalleled ability both to exonerate the wrongly convicted and to identify the guilty.’’

In the court’s first examination of how to treat the rapidly evolving field of biological testing, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for a majority that said it is up to the states and Congress to decide who has a right to testing that might prove innocence long after conviction.

Kevin G. Hall | Washington | June 18

McClatchy -

Call it son of subprime. Experts warn that a new wave of mortgage foreclosures may be coming soon and could rival the default rates for subprime mortgages and slow efforts to find bottom in a prolonged national housing slump.

The mortgages in question are $230 billion of option adjustable-rate mortgages, creative lending products that flourished at the height of the housing boom. In an option ARM, a borrower can opt to pay less than his or her monthly balance due, and the difference is tacked onto the outstanding loan balance.

Many experts had expected an explosion of defaults in the springtime on these roughly 564,000 outstanding mortgages. However, interest rates dropped to historic lows, and that delayed the detonation of what many housing analysts still see as a ticking time bomb.

"They're probably going to default at a rate that makes subprime look like a walk in the park," warned Rick Sharga, senior vice president for RealtyTrac, a foreclosure research firm in Irvine, Calif.

Option ARMs have triggers that reset to a new interest rate based on either a set timeframe or when debt exceeds some cap above the loan's value. The spring drop in interest rates allowed many borrowers to escape a day of reckoning because the lower rates prevented a triggering of that cap.

That just postponed the problem, however, because most option ARMs have five-year automatic trigger dates. These loans were most prevalent in states such as California, Florida and Nevada, where home prices have sunk so far that many homeowners are underwater: They owe more than their homes are worth.

Josh Meyer | Washington | June 18

LA Times - The United States lacks a coordinated strategy to stem the flow of weapons across its southern border, a failure that has fueled the rise of powerful criminal cartels and violence in Mexico, according to a government watchdog agency report being released Thursday.

The report by the congressional Government Accountability Office represents the first federal assessment of the issue and offers blistering conclusions that likely will impact the debate over the role of U.S. weaponry as Mexican violence threatens to spill across the border.

A draft of the GAO report confirms that a growing number of increasingly lethal, U.S.-made weapons are being smuggled into Mexico and comprise more than 90% of firearms seized by authorities there.

The report also cites recent U.S. intelligence indicating that most of the weapons are being smuggled in specifically for the syndicates, and are being used not only against the Mexican government but also to help the cartels in their efforts to control drug distribution in U.S. cities.

"The U.S. government lacks a strategy to address arms trafficking to Mexico," the report says in blunt terms. "Individual U.S. agencies have undertaken a variety of activities and projects to combat arms trafficking to Mexico, but they are not part of a comprehensive U.S. government-wide strategy for addressing the problem."

Jim Wolf | Washington | June 17

Reuters - U.S. ground-based interceptor missiles stand a better-than-90-percent chance of thwarting a "rogue nation" ballistic missile attack on the United States in the next five years, the second highest-ranking military officer told Congress on Tuesday.

Giving the most bullish military assessment to date on the Boeing Co-managed system's capabilities, Marine Corps Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, replied "ninety percent plus" when asked the odds of defeating a long-range missile that could be fired by North Korea.

Lisbeth Gronlund, an expert on missile defense at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Cambridge, Massachusetts, dismissed his estimate as "irresponsible and based on wishful thinking," not facts.

June 17

Raw Story - President Barack Obama will announce Wednesday the White House’s proposal for reforming the U.S. financial system. The plan will call for the closure of the U.S. Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS), the creation of a new consumer credit protection agency and greater powers for the Federal Reserve to supervise major financial firms.

Reuters characterized the plan as cutting the number of U.S. bank regulators.

The administration would merge the OTS with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, an administration official said Tuesday. The proposal also calls for creating the Consumer Federal Protection Agency (CFPA) to police credit, savings and other payment markets, the official added.

It will be guided by five principles, the official said on condition of anonymity, including “transparency, simplicity, fairness, accountability, and access.”

yay banksters regulating banksters!, sample comments after the jump

June 17

Raw Story - White House press secretary Robert Gibbs refused to say if President Barack Obama would sign an executive order to prevent the release of detainee abuse photos Tuesday. Earlier in the day, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told reporters that he had reason to believe Mr. Obama was considering such an order.

“I have reason to believe they are looking at that as a way to resolve this situation,” Hoyer (D-Md.) said.

At Tuesday’s White House briefing, spokesman Gibbs said, “All I’m going to say on this is that the president has committed to all interested parties that he intends to do what is necessary to keep those photos from being released and that he intends to keep that commitment.”

Didn't we have an election?

Maggie Shiels | Silicon Valley | June 17

BBC - Twitter has distanced itself from State Department revelations that it asked the company to delay maintenance so Iranians could continue to communicate.

Twitter is one of the social networking tools being used by people inside the country to coordinate protests disputing the election result.

The planned upgrade would have cut the service at a crucial time of the day.

The State Department declined to give details of its contact with Twitter except to say "we highlighted to them that this was an important form of communication."

AFP - The Obama administration took the unusual step of asking Twitter to delay a planned maintenance outage because of the social blogging site's use as a communications tool by Iranians following their disputed election, a senior official said on Tuesday.

But it also seemed to run counter to President Barack Obama's public efforts not to appear to be meddling in Iran's internal affairs.

Oh this should go over well ;)

Robert Green | St Petersburg | June 17

Reuters - A Florida tent city for hundreds of homeless people lies at the end of a dead-end street, but residents say they have not given up hope of a better life despite the U.S. economic downturn.

The Pinellas Hope camp, 250 single-person tents in neat rows on land owned by the Catholic Diocese of St. Petersburg in a wooded area north of the city, has room for about 270 and has been filled to capacity since it opened two years ago.

"I could open the gates and have over 500 people," said Sheila Lopez, the chief operating officer for Catholic Charities at the St. Petersburg diocese.

Renee Schoof | Washington | June 16

McClatchy - American agriculture has become increasingly dependent on foreign sources of natural gas, a key ingredient in the nitrogen fertilizer that farmers use to get high yields of crops such as corn and wheat.

Now, a California start-up company is preparing to open a plant that will make fertilizer in the U.S. and reduce fossil fuel emissions from agriculture.

Nothing exotic needed, said the company, SynGest of San Francisco. The raw ingredient for the same ammonia-based fertilizer farmers have used for decades is something many already have and don't really need: corncobs.

June 15

BBC - (pic: A mock-up of an alien autopsy at the International UFO Museum in Roswell, New Mexico)

UFO watchers believe that in 1947 a flying saucer with aliens on board landed outside the New Mexico town of Roswell and that an elaborate cover-up by the authorities followed. The BBC's Kevin Connolly went to Roswell in pursuit of the truth about the Roswell incident.

There is a lunar quality to the landscape of New Mexico which seems somehow appropriate for a state which is our portal to the heavens.

It is here on a dried-up lake bed high above sea level that the radio telescopes of the US government's Very Large Array (VLA) receive signals from the outer edges of our expanding universe, chasing the very moment of the Big Bang through the trackless void of time and space.

And of course it is also here - perhaps - that 62 years ago a flying-saucer crashed to earth on a ranch outside the town of Roswell, killing its alien crew and prompting one of the most elaborate and protracted cover-ups in history.

The power of that possibility and the darkness of the nights here so far from the light pollution of the big cities are what draw scientists and curious tourists alike to this entrancing place.

And it is what motivates watchers of the skies to keep, well, watching the skies, obviously.

Daniel Tencer | Jan 13

Raw Story -

You’ve got to hand it to the U.S. Government Accountability Office — they’ve got initiative.

When the government agency — which has for years been holding successive administrations’ feet to the fire over deficit spending and other management issues — was tasked with investigating how secure America’s sensitive technologies are, it set up a dummy corporation to buy American weapons and see if it could ship them to countries known as transit points for smuggling weapons.

What they managed to smuggle out of the United States was astounding: Triggers for nuclear bombs; microchips for smart missiles; components for improvised explosives; even current-issue U.S. Army body armor.

And the method they used to do it was brilliant in its simplicity: To avoid export restrictions, they set up their dummy corporation inside the United States. Then, once in possession of the equipment, they shipped it overseas.