The McGlynn: Celebrating the birth of a child and we, yes we, then kill, including two women who were pregnant. What do we hear from the Pro-Life groups.? Silence. What do we hear from the formal Churches? Silence. What do we hear from their Pulpits? Silence. What do we hear from Congress? Silence. Silence permeates our Land.

 Caught On Video: Moments Before Afghan Massacre, A Family Celebrates

Huffington Post

The video is haunting: Three Afghan men are dancing in joy, whirling, clapping, throwing their arms in the air. One has just had a baby boy. There is music in the air. The whole extended family has gathered to celebrate.

Hours later, two of the men lie dead, shot and killed by U.S. troops, the victims of a deeply disturbing massacre and cover-up that the White House, Congress and the United Nations continue to ignore.

In the family video, obtained by Brave New Films’s Rethink Afghanistan project, one of the dead — the new father — is first seen dancing in an ornate jacket. He is Mohammed Daoud, 43, a long-serving, popular policeman who had recently been promoted to head of intelligence in one of the region’s most volatile districts.

One of the other dancers is Saranwal Zahir, his brother, who was a local prosecutor.

The video also shows their bloody bodies, as well as a blanket covering the three other people killed in the massacre: a teenage girl and two women, both seven months pregnant.

U.S. Special Forces troops opened fire on the family in the early-morning hours of Feb. 12, apparently mistaking them for insurgents, although how they could have done so remains a mystery

The cover-up began quickly, and gruesomely, with soldiers going so far as actually digging their bullets out of the bodies of the three women they had shot. NATO headquarters, led by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, then joined the cover-up and repeatedly tried to discredit British reporter Jerome Starkey, who broke the story for the Times of London.

As I’ve written before, I’d like someone in Congress to hold a hearing into this atrocity.

Rethink Afghanistan, meanwhile, is gathering signatures for a petition demanding an independent, United-Nations-led investigation of the cover-up.

In the video, the narration is provided by a surviving family member, Sayid Mohammad Mal, the assistant dean of the local university. I wrote about Mohammad’s story — and his appeal to President Obama to judge for himself whether he is bringing “peace or murder” to the Afghan people — last week.

The new video also includes a picture of children gathered at the graves of those killed, and a photo of members of the family and other partygoers after the shooting. The man holding the photo of the two dead men is their father.

WATCH: VIEWER DISCRETION ADVISED, ESPECIALLY THE YOUNG

The video is haunting: Three Afghan men are dancing in joy, whirling, clapping, throwing their arms in the air. One has just had a baby boy. There is music in the air. The whole extended family has ga…

The video is haunting: Three Afghan men are dancing in joy, whirling, clapping, throwing their arms in the air. One has just had a baby boy. There is music in the air. The whole extended family has gathered..

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Robert Greenwald: Our Afghan Victims Have Faces

I spoke with a man who lost a cousin and a future daughter-in-law during that awful special forces night raid. Hearing the story from a person who was there really drives home the necessity of ending this brutal, costly war.

Derrick Crowe: Nothing to See Here, Folks: Covering Up a Massacre in Afghanistan

What does it mean for McChrystal’s people to apologize for killing innocent people and lying about it, only to have them turn around and keep repeating the same behavior? Why should we be moved or lend credulity to such apologies?

Robert Greenwald: Rethink Afghanistan: Independent Media Stands Up to Pentagon Propaganda

Five civillians were killed by U.S. forces in Afghanistan in February. NATO now acknowledges that an Afghan forensics team found possible signs of evidence-tampering at the location of the raid.

  The McGlynn: The following is the complete question to the President and his answer, which Mr Greenwald addresses in his article. The answer, to me, is alarming. Is he trying to be loved by all or is this what he truly believes?  Either way his answer cuts myself, and all the liberals who lived through the thirties, forties, fifties, sixtes, and seventies,  to the core. Let me put it in plan Irish. Damn! I am beginning to think he does not know the human side of what the battles were all about. My God, the same error? They were interpreting the Constitution!

This about does it for me.

 Q    Senator Leahy has been talking a lot about conservative judicial activism, and I wonder if you see that as a frame through which the new Supreme Court nomination and confirmation will be considered.  You’ve talked about understanding the –

  THE PRESIDENT:  Well, I mean, here’s what I will say.  It used to be that the notion of an activist judge was somebody who ignored the will of Congress, ignored democratic processes, and tried to impose judicial solutions on problems instead of letting the process work itself through politically.  And in the ’60s and ’70s, the feeling was, is that liberals were guilty of that kind of approach.

 What you’re now seeing, I think, is a conservative jurisprudence that oftentimes makes the same error.  And I think rather than a notion of judicial restraint we should apply both to liberals and conservative jurists, what you’re seeing is arguments about original intent and other legal theories that end up giving judges an awful lot of power; in fact, sometimes more power than duly-elected representatives.

 And so I’m not looking at this particular judicial nomination through that prism alone, but I think it is important for us to understand that judicial — the concept of judicial restraint cuts both ways.  And the core understanding of judicial restraint is, is that generally speaking, we should presume that the democratic processes and laws that are produced by the House and the Senate and state legislatures, et cetera, that the administrative process that goes with it is afforded some deference as long as core constitutional values are observed.

 But that in and of itself is not the only criteria by which I’m making selections on judges.

Let the White House know how you feel:  http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact

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 Obama speaks about the Supreme Court

By Glenn Greenwald

President Obama gave an interview last night aboard Air Force One in which he was asked about his views of the Supreme Court, and this is what he said:

It used to be that the notion of an activist judge was somebody who ignored the will of Congress, ignored democratic processes, and tried to impose judicial solutions on problems instead of letting the process work itself through politically. And in the ’60s and ’70s, the feeling was, is that liberals were guilty of that kind of approach.

What you’re now seeing, I think, is a conservative jurisprudence that oftentimes makes the same error.

The reason this is so striking is because it’s long been a right-wing Article of Faith that the Supreme Court in those two decades — the Warren Court (until 1969) and then the Burger Court — was guilty of so-called “judicial activism.”  Conversely, liberals have long viewed those two courts as the high point of the judiciary’s protection of Constitutional liberty, and with good reason (note that defenders of Elena Kagan have been claiming she’d be “the next Earl Warren,” which they mean as a compliment).  Those were the Courts of William Brennan, Thurgood Marshall, William O. Douglas, and Hugo Black, among the most admired progressive Supreme Court Justices of the last century.  I’d really like to know what Obama means specifically when he adopts the Right’s view by condemning those courts as being guilty of “erroneous” judicial activism.

The Supreme Court in the 60s and 70s produced many of the decisions most cherished by mainstream progressives.  That was when the right to privacy was first recognized in Griswold, anti-miscegenation statutes were struck down in Loving, public school officials were barred from imposing sectarian prayer in Engel and mandatory Bible readings in Abington, defendants’ rights were safeguarded in Miranda, the right to counsel was mandated in Gideon, reproductive rights were protected in Roe, religious freedoms were enhanced in Sherbert, Fourth Amendment guarantees against unreasonable searches and seizure were strengthened with the exclusionary rule in Mapp and by application to telephone eavesdropping in Katz, critical First Amendment safeguards were enforced in Brandenburgand The Pentagon Papers case (NYT v. U.S.), the rule of law was aggressively applied to Richard Nixon when the Court unanimously ordered him to comply with Congressional subpoenas, and the promise of equal protection enshrined in Brown v. The Board of Education(a decision of the Warren Court) was carried through with a series of decisions applying those principles to states and localities.

These decisions form the bedrock of progressive legal thought regarding the Constitution and the Supreme Court, which is why it’s rather bizarre to hear Barack Obama condemn unspecified aspects of it as “judicial activism errors.”  Shouldn’t he be asked which specific parts of the judicial approach in these two decades he finds to be disturbing?  It’s possible that he had something relatively innocuous in mind, that he intended to make a different point than the one he made, or that it was just a sloppy though typical effort to show how fair-minded he is by attacking the Dreaded Left, but the way he expressed it was a virtually complete replica of decades-old right-wing attacks on the Supreme Court.  Perhaps this explains why two of his reputed top 3 candidates to replace Justice Stevens are Elena Kagan and Merrick Garland (a former prosecutor whom Charlie Savage described this week by suggesting “that he could be more of a center-right justicein matters of criminal law”).

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I’ve written extensivelyabout the U.S. media’s refusal to use the word “torture“ to describe what the United States does, while using that term promiscuously to describe the same behavior from other countries.  John Cole today notesa particularly egregious example of that distorting, government-subservient practice.

UDPATE:  Several people, in comments and via email, argue that Obama did not intend in these comments to endorse the view that there was judicial activism in the 1960s and 1970s, but merely that conservatives are being hypocritical in doing now what they accused liberal judges back then of doing (see here and herefor two examples of that objection).  That’s definitely possible; I explicitly acknowledged that there was ambiguity in what Obama said and that “it’s possible that he had something relatively innocuous in mind,” which is why he should be asked what he meant.  But I think my reading of his comments is, at the very least, reasonable, for reasons I explain here.  Perhaps we can hear a clearer statement from him on whether he thinks, as he seemed (to me) to say here, that liberal Justices in these two decades were guilty of the “error” of judicial activism and, if so, in which instances.

On a related note, The Huffington Post’s Sam Stein today documentsand examines Elena Kagan’s support for some of George Bush’s most controversial right-wing judicial nominees.  I suppose it’s nice to learn that she’s able to take a public position on something.

UPDATE II:  CNN has a moderately interesting update on Obama’s search for Stevens’ replacement:

The White House has begun finalizing its list of potential nominees for the upcoming Supreme Court vacancy, with many senior administration officials privately urging the president to name someone with a proven, “reliable” liberal record, according to sources closely involved in the selection process. . . . Government sources say top Obama aides have been getting an earful from liberals, who want to ensure a strong voice from the left is chosen, not a so-called “compromise” choicethat could ensure a smoother confirmation this summer. They worry a nominee perceived as having a moderate-liberal record could lock Democrats into a position of never being able to win approval of future Obama judicial and executive branch nominees with more liberal views. . . .

One issue that has raised particular red flags on the left is executive power, and whether Obama has done enough to reverse the scope of anti-terror policies from the Bush administration dealing with detaining and prosecuting suspects. Some human rights groups say the current president and his aides have in some cases been too eager to embrace an expansive view of unilateral power. . . .

About 10 candidates remain on the “short list,” which is now being pared down to about three or four finalists. . . . Sources with knowledge of the internal vetting process say the focus remains on three people: Solicitor General Elena Kagan; federal appeals judge Diane Wood, based in Chicago; and federal appeals judge Merrick Garland, who works in Washington.

Kagan is believed by many to be the leading candidate, but her lack of judicial experience and her work defending the administration’s anti-terror policies worry some progressives.

These reports are anonymous, so take them for what they’re worth.

AAP: The Internet is Causing the Autism Epidemic?

By Katie Wright, April 29, 2010

If you watched “Frontline: The Vaccine Wars” you probably learned:

 1) Unregulated free speech is dangerous, especially the internet which is a major cause of the autism epidemic

2) Parents have access to way too much information

3) Pediatricians, not children, are the real victims of this phony epidemic

4) Parents who do not vaccinate are selfish, naïve and are putting the health of the entire Unites States of America, and possibly the world, at risk.

5) Pandemics are always a plane ride away, so don’t get on that plane!

6) Despite numerous reports to the contrary, are no conflicts of interest between the CDC and the vaccine industry. That is why we were afraid to discuss it on “Frontline.”

7) The risks of unlimited vaccination are infinitesimally  small, so small you don’t even understand how small, teeny tiny small, so small we won’t measure it or allow public access to adverse vaccine reaction records

8) Parents who saw the children regress after multiple vaccines are “confused,” “emotional and “looking for someone to blame.”

9) Ashland, OR is a super dangerous place, filled with crazies

10) Paul Offit says “parents don’t understand” 100x and believes parents should stay off the internet, especially youtube.com!

11) Apparently, not one doctor in all of the USA questions the safety of our vaccine schedule, plus pediatricians are exhausted by having to answer all those annoying vaccine schedule questions, so just quit it!

12) YouTube practices mind control over children and adults in order to make them doubt the safety of vaccines

13) YouTube is our mortal enemy!

14) Jenny McCarthy was a Playboy model, not a bestselling author, not the impetus for the “Green the Vaccine” march and not an inspiration to thousands of parents, but possibly an agent of youtube.com

15) Paul Offit looks SO much like the Dwarf Dad in “Little People Big World.”

16) Dr. Eric Fombonne is hard to understand but sounds like a man in love when speaking about vaccines

17)  Don’t you know people get hurt or injured from diseases!

18) This is  totally black and white debate. If you do not fully vaccinate your child on our schedule, which incidentally is more designed to combat the health risks found in sub Saharan Africa, your child will likely die or kill another child!

19) Dr. Antonio Fauci warns that Polio could results in a “serious limp or “injury” and will interfere with baseball season

20)  Dr. Cynthia Cristofani says it is no laughing matter that “chicken pox kills!!!”

21) We are all at War!

22) Autism is a mystery

Katie Wright is a Contributing Editor for Age of Autism.

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Dismissed!

By Anne Dachel, April 29, 2010

Tuesday night’s PBS Frontline show, “The Vaccine War,” is getting a lot of reaction within the autism community today.  Before watching Frontline, I’d heard enough about the show not to expect fair coverage. The very title was misleading.  The word “war” makes one think of a conflict with two sides.  That’s not what PBS presented to the public however, and anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of the vaccine controversy, could recognize the spin. 
 
On their website, PBS promoted this show saying, “In The Vaccine War, FRONTLINE lays bare the science of vaccine safety and examines the increasingly bitter debate between the public health establishment and a formidable populist coalition of parents, celebrities, politicians and activists who are armed with the latest social media tools — including Facebook, YouTube and Twitter — and are determined to resist pressure from the medical and public health establishments to vaccinate, despite established scientific consensus about vaccine safety.”
 
In truth, what we witnessed on PBS was yet another example of media bias and a distorted reporting of the facts.  Parents have grown weary of the mantra, “vaccines are safe, vaccines save lives.”  How many times has this issue been declared settled?  How many studies have been announced showing vaccines don’t have serious side effects like autism?  This debate shows no signs of stopping, despite the ardent efforts of shows like Frontline.
 
The claims of parents were noted and dismissed on Frontline.

A growing number of parents say that vaccines can cause autism and that more studies need to be done.  Frontline reported that the science is in.  There’s no need for more research because multiple, large-scale studies from around the world have looked at the question and the answer is no. 
 
Ten of thousands of parents report that their children were normally developing until they were vaccinated.  They regressed and became autistic.  Paul Offit, MD, Anthony Fauci, MD and Eric Fombonne, MD declared that regression following vaccinations is mere coincidence.
 
Parents are worried about the number of vaccine in the schedule.  Frontline had Melinda Wharton, MD, MPH in her Public Health Service uniform telling us about all the disease-preventing vaccines that are out there now.
 
The autism numbers have skyrocketed coincidentally with the dramatic expansion of the vaccine schedule.  Frontline called autism “mysterious” and said it “appears” to have increased.
 
On their website, PBS included this interview with Montreal psychiatrist, Eric Fombonne.
(HERE)  In it Fombonne explained why autism is not an epidemic.
 
I think a better name for the show would have been, “The Anti-vaccine Movement: Misguided and Dangerous.” 
 
PBS portrayed parents as impassioned and determined but totally without any science on their side.  We see Jenny McCarthy, JB Handley, Barbara Loe Fisher, and Robert Kennedy Jr, along with a number of non-vaccinating parents.  To the general public the message was clear:  The medical community is lined up against them.  Their movement is based on fraudulent research (Andrew Wakefield) and celebrity leadership (Jenny McCarthy).
 
So why do the show? 
 
Why give more publicity to the phony claim that vaccines have harmful side effects? 
 
Maybe the answer is that despite the best efforts of health officials and their willing followers in the media, the public isn’t buying it.  Parents are scared.  Autistic children are everywhere in our schools and no one can reasonably explain where they’re all coming from.  A lot of the Frontline show was about the power of the Internet.  Offit declared that people are getting phony information from watching YouTube videos.  The Internet is the dangerous influence, according to all these health experts.  Fisher, McCarthy, and Handley use this forum to influence the public.  Parents are exempting their children and we’re losing herd immunity.  This is becoming a national health threat.
 
There was nothing new in what the pro-vaccine people had to say.  We were reminded that they’re focused saving lives.  Nothing was new from the other side either.  Parents continue to hang on to the false belief that vaccines can harm children.  It’s hard to imagine what PBS hoped to accomplish with this show.
 
What we never hear:
 
Notice that under no circumstance does anyone ever bring up what else motivates the medical community and health officials.  No one mentions that these people have everything at stake in this debate.  If countless parents are right and vaccines have damaged a generation of children, people will be held responsible—the same people who tell us vaccines are safe.  Media sources like PBS like to pretend that this is just about the science, but any clear thinking person knows that’s not the case.
 
There was another element was missing from the PBS coverage.  Where were the experts on our side?  Why did PBS make it seem that only parents are concerned about vaccine safety?  Did they make any effort to find any of the well-credentialed scientists and doctors who disagree with the main-stream medical community?
 
The answer is yes, they found them two of them.  PBS interviewed Jay Gordon, MD and Robert Sears, MD.  They discussed the issue with producer Kate McMahon for several hours each. 
 
Gordon is a nationally renowned pediatrician and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, UCLA Medical School. 
 
Sears is also well-known and the author of several books, including ones on vaccines and on autism.
 
So what happened to their interviews?
 
McMahon said Gordon was cut because it was “best for the show.” I spoke with Dr. Sears and he said that he was told that his interview was cut because “there was too much footage.”  Paul Offit was shown a number of times on the broadcast, but there wasn’t thirty seconds for either Sears or Gordon. 
 
Sears’s interview is on the PBS website (HERE)  Gordon’s is not.
 
Sears makes it clear that he’s pro-vaccine.  He hopes that by offering an alternative schedule, reluctant parents will continue to vaccinate their children.

He’s hardly the threat to herd immunity that non-vaccinating parents are, but incredibly, Frontline made no mention of Dr. Sears. 
 
The only way the story presented by Frontline works is if we just forget about autism.  We have to pretend that there’s been no real increase.  The vaccine schedule may be more than three times what it was in 1983, but it hasn’t caused any problems.  The only epidemics we need to worry about are the ones caused by non-vaccinating parents.
 
The real problem is, AUTISM ISN’T GOING AWAY.  One percent of children have it.  One in every 70 boys.  We’re talking about hundreds of thousands of disabled children who will live long lives, many severely disabled and totally dependent.  PBS may try to change the subject and ignore the reality of what’s happened to our children but the public hears more and more about autism everyday in the news.  As these affected children age into adulthood, they will cost billion of dollars each year for their support and care and their numbers will be replaced by another generation of children.  This is the scariest scenario I can image.  And no one is talking about it.
 
Among the questions Bob Sears was asked were these two: “What if vaccines turn out to be a red herring? What if we’re so off the mark with vaccines?” 

I think Kate McMahon should have asked him two more questions: What if vaccines turn out to be the cause of the autism epidemic?  What if all those questioning vaccine safety are right?
 
Anne Dachel is Media Editor for Age of Autism

The McGlynn: Drill, Obama, Drill!, Drill! Drill!!

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Oil slick reaches US shores Louisiana on alert as military offers help to contain Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Spill threatens sensitive coastline Blog: ‘They saw it coming!’ Environmental crisis looms Programme: Losing Louisiana

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Goldman ‘faces US criminal inquiry’

Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman’s CEO, was questioned by a US senate subcommittee this week [AFP] The US justice department has reportedly opened an investigation into the investment bank Goldman Sachs over mortgage deals it allegedly finalised with knowledge of their high risk. The criminal investigation was begun in New York on Thursday raising the prospect of the firm or some of its employees being charged, the Wall Street Journal newspaper reported. The investigation follows the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing civil fraud charges against Goldman and one of its traders two weeks ago.

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US coastguard, government and BP outline measures to contain the oil spill.