Michael Jackson’s doctor has been charged with involuntary manslaughter in the pop singer’s death.
Prosecutors announced the charge Monday against Dr. Conrad Murray, a Houston cardiologist who was with Jackson when he died June 25. He faces up to four years in prison if convicted.Murray’s attorney Ed Chernoff says.
Murray will plead not guilty.
Month: February 2010
Who Really Ran Alaska? Was It Todd or Sarah Palin?
Sarah Palin: The gift that keeps on giving.
From the Chicago Sun-Times:
E-mails shed new light on Todd Palin’s role while his wife was Alaska’s governor, showing that the one-time oil field worker’s advice was sought on board appointments and suggesting he was close to matters related to state government, his wife’s image and politics.
Relatively few of the messages obtained as part of a public records request were sent by Todd Palin himself.
Rather, his personal e-mail address is included on messages sent by administration staff, top aides to then-Gov. Sarah Palin and Palin on topics ranging from use of the state plane to day-to-day governing issues and oil and gas legislation that Palin made a hallmark of her 21/2 years in office.
But the e-mails, first reported by MSNBC.com, together provide fresh insight into what many had suspected was a highly influential role played by the self-proclaimed "First Dude." They also reflect the at-times fierce loyalty that Todd Palin and others close to the former governor felt, particularly amid tensions with lawmakers and criticism in the media.
"Have Meg take the news miner off the press release address list for a few days,see how long it takes them to realize their not on the list," Todd Palin wrote to his wife in an e-mail, dated June 21, 2007, after the governor questioned the fairness of an editor in Fairbanks Daily News-Miner.
It’s not clear from the e-mails whether there was a policy, unspoken or otherwise, that Todd Palin be copied in on certain matters either because he was a key adviser or a mere backstop to the governor. Several former aides to Sarah Palin declined comment Friday.
I’ll bet those former ades to Sarah Palin declined comment.
So, what exactly was the role of Todd Palin in Alaskan government? Was he the brains behind the operation?
A Palin attorney attempts to clarify:
Palin attorney Thomas Van Flein said in a statement Friday that each spouse of a chief executive is free to define his or her own role.
Todd Palin "was, and remains, a close advisor to the governor. Those in the administration knew this, and the public knew this," he wrote. "There is nothing unusual, untoward or inappropriate for a spouse of a chief executive to provide guidance, input and hands on assistance."
And then there’s the Alaska constitution. What role, exactly, does the Alaska constitution reserve for the spouse of the governor?
Did Sarah Palin make decisions on her own, or ndid she consult Todd every step of the way? Indeed, did Sarah Palin make any decisions on her own while ostensibly serving as governor of Alaska?
I want to hear from some Alaskans. Were you all really aware that Sarah was consulting Todd so frequently?
More here from MSNBC, first to break the story.
Well, isn’t that interesting. He’s nothing, a nobody, a “husband” when there’s an investigation into abuse of power. His newly revealed emails demonstrate a clear and unambiguous over-reach…but he’s just an unpaid adviser…
WHICH ONE IS IT?
Shannyn Moore, "just a girl from Homer," has a special place in her heart for the Palins. They’ve really helped her career, you know.
Sarah Palin: The gift that keeps on giving.
To Scott Lee Cohen: Bond With Your Kids, Drop Out of the Race for Lt. Gov.
The Chicago Sun-Times says it has a source who tells them the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor Scott Lee Cohen is looking for an honorable way to withdraw from the general election.
That’s the good news in a week when we learned some very, very bad things about Scott Lee Cohen.
Facing intense and mounting pressure to step aside, embattled Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor Scott Lee Cohen is seeking an “honorable way” out, a Cohen campaign source said tonight.
Cohen, who mostly kept out of the public eye today, said as recently as Thursday that he had no plans to quit. But with Democrats across the state urging him to re-think that decision, Cohen appears to be concerned how revelations about his private life might hurt the Democratic party.
Close advisers have been trying to convince Cohen to “do the right thing,” warning that he could be blamed for “bringing down the party” by remaining a candidate, the campaign source said.
Cohen could not be reached for comment tonight. His staff has said he plans to speak tonight to the media at a downtown night club — where a table was roped off and waiting for him at 8 p.m.
This morning, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin called on Cohen to step aside, and several local women’s groups blasted the media and Cohen’s political opponents for “burying” and “ignoring” domestic violence issues.
“I’ve heard enough,” Durbin said. “And if there’s more — I don’t know what it might be — but I’ve heard enough to suggest that he should have not run for office.”
The senator added: “He really should spare himself, and his friends and family what he’s about to go through. I’m afraid the disclosures so far really disqualify him.”
I’ve stayed away from this one. Last night I watched WTTW’s Phil Ponce grill Cohen and his ex-wife on Chicago tonight. Generally amenable and courtly when he interviews, last night was the closest I’ve seen Ponce get to taking the gloves off. I felt for Cohen and ex-wife Debra York-Cohen, but I couldn’t help thinking that these two polite adults on WTTW were at each other’s throats just a short time ago. Ponce aired more dirt about the former couple than I cared to hear.
This is bad.
I also thought of former U.S. Senate candidate Jack Ryan, who saw records from his 1999 divorce from actress Jeri Ryan become public knowledge in 2004. Insiders with the Obama for Senate campaign told me Barack had no desire to use any personal information like this against Jack Ryan. The Obama campaign knew there were issues with the divorce, but then-candidate Obama ordered that the campaign focus on public issues, not issues personal to Ryan and his family. I believed them at the time, and I still do.
The Chicago Tribune and WLS-TV sought to have the divorce records opened. Eventually, we learned more than we ever cared to learn about Jack and Jeri Ryan and their tepid break-up, and none of that really mattered at all. Voyeurism got the better of the media, and many of the records were ordered unsealed by the court. What happened to Jack Ryan was unfair.
In October 2004, Jack Ryan told the Dartmouth Independent, “What was totally unprecedented in US politics is a paper suing to get access to sealed custody documents, sealed divorce records. No real precedent for that happening. Senator Kerry, for instance, has sealed divorce records and they’re not asking him to turn them over. After I dropped out of the race, people would say, “Hey, since Senator Kerry has sealed divorce records and they sued to have yours opened, in fairness, shouldn’t they sue to have Senator Kerry’s records opened?” And I said absolutely not. That’s the exact wrong thing to do. Just because it happened to me, it doesn’t mean that it should be the new standard. This is the new low for politics in America.” (Emphasis added)
Jack Ryan was right, but the media’s sanctimony and puritanical nature prevailed.
The circumstances with Scott Lee Cohen are much worse, however. Allegations of missed child support payments, domestic abuse and steroid use make the Ryans’ story look like a fairy tale wedding. According to the Sun-Times, as recently as two months ago, Cohen owed his ex-wife $54,000 in back child support payments. He also had to explain his October 2005 arrest, ” when he was accused of domestic battery. His accuser was his live-in girlfriend, who had been arrested on a prostitution charge earlier that year. She was later convicted,” the Sun-Times reports.
There has been a fair amount of finger-pointing throughout Illinois over this election. Why did we not know any of this during the campaign? Where was the media? Isn’t Carol Marin supposed to find out all of these things and tell us in her Sunday column? Cohen and his ex-wife insist it was all “out there,” but, if it was, no one paid attention. None of us paid attention. Maybe the media was preoccupied watching Todd Stroger’s ship sink. Perhaps the media was enthralled with the numerous races for governor. To tell you the truth, I hardly gave the race for lieutenant governor any thought at all. What does the lieutenant governor do anyhow?
Nothing. Except wait to be governor. And we all know now that can happen.
I vow in the future to do my own work vetting candidates for lieutenant governor candidates, but a late-night promise won’t do any of us any good right now.
They’re more important than anything.
Do I want a lieutenant governor who admits he used steroids to such a degree that he allegedly became violent and unpredictable. Am I comfortable with a man arrested on a domestic abuse charge even if he was never convicted?
No. No way.
Is Scott Lee Cohen electable in November?
No. Not now. Not at all.
Scott, whatever face you have left after this, save it. No one is asking you to “go gentle into that good night,’ but we do ask that you go.
I hope that Scott Lee Cohen and his ex-wife find some peace after all the dust has settled. I hope Scott Lee Cohen does the right thing and establishes a plan to get current with his child support payments. Anyone who can afford to drop $2 million of his own money on an election can afford to give his ex-wife $54,000 and then some for his children. Scott, pay up, get to know your children better. Bond with them. They’re more important than any elected office. They’re more important than $54,000. They’re even more important than $2 million.
Giannoulias Wins Democratic Nomination for U.S. Senate in Illinois
Congratulations to Illinois State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias on winning the nomination for the United States Senate seat held by President Barack Obama!
Giannoulias won comfortably.
I’m sure dirty ads from the Republicans have already begun.
17-Year-Old Ramone Washington Shot By Coward In West Humboldt Park
A 17-year-old boy was shot and killed this afternoon in the city’s West Humboldt Park neighborhood,Chicago police said.
Police believe the teen’s killers chased him down before shooting him, authorities said.
Killed was Ramone Washington, of the 700 block of South Karlov Avenue, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
A neighbor called police to report screaming followed by shooting near the 1100 block of North Keystone Avenue just after 1:40 p.m., police said.
Our thoughts and prayers are with the family of Ramone Washington.
Turns Out President Obama Never Forgot His Promise to Repeal ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’
President Obama and top Pentagon officials met repeatedly over the past year about repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell,” the law that bans openly gay members of the military.
But it was in Oval Office strategy sessions to review court cases challenging the ban — ones that could reach the Supreme Court — that Mr. Obama faced the fact that if he did not change the policy, his administration would be forced to defend publicly the constitutionality of a law he had long opposed.
As a participant recounted one of the sessions, Mr. Obama told Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, that the law was “just wrong.” Mr. Obama told them, the participant said, that he had delayed acting on repeal because the military was stretched in two wars and he did not want another polarizing debate in 2009 to distract from his health care fight.
But in 2010, he told them, this would be a priority. He got no objections.
On Tuesday, in the first Congressional hearing on the issue in 17 years, Mr. Gates and Admiral Mullen will unveil the Pentagon’s initial plans for carrying out a repeal, which requires an act of Congress. Gay rights leaders say they expect Mr. Gates to announce in the interim that the Defense Department will not take action to discharge service members whose sexual orientation is revealed by third parties or jilted partners, one of the most onerous aspects of the law. Pentagon officials had no comment.
Gay rights groups are calling the hearing historic even as they question how quickly the administration is prepared to act. But Republicans are already signaling that they are not eager to take up the issue.
I hope that our friends in these gay rights groups start to understand that the president was actually working on repealing the ban on gays in the military almost non-stop since taking office, meeting "repeatedly" with top Pentagon officials, in addition to talking about the wars the previous president started.
Maybe, just maybe, there’s more involved in being President of the United States than viewing everything through the lenses of one issue?
The ban should be repealed, and I hope it is soon.
I’m near the end of Frank Schaeffer’s Patience with God: Faith for People Who Don’t Like Religion (or Atheism)
When I was a child (to paraphrase St. Paul), I did not trust the military. Now that I am a man, I have an incredible respect for those who serve this country in uniform. Some liberals really go overboard slamming the military, and they should not. These men and women learn to move beyond preoccupation with the self. They think of the other, the platoon, the United States of America, before they think of themselves. Those in uniform are worthy of our respect and support.
Gays and lesbians are more than capable of serving openly, thinking of others first, the platoon, the United States of America, before they think of themselves. Gay and lesbian soldiers serve openly in the military of other countries every day.
Gay and lesbian soldiers have been serving the United States of America in the military for centuries. Let them finally and proudly serve openly.
Tearing Down the Reagan Myth
This Friday marks the 99th anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s birth. You’re going to be hearing a lot about the Gipper this week, and you’re going to be hearing a lot about him for the next 12 months. Already, a Ronald Reagan Centennial Commission — signed into law by President Obama last June, at a ceremony attended by Nancy Reagan — is busy planning a slew of Feb. 6, 2011, events that may take the nation one step closer toward Reagan’s political canonization. Meanwhile, day in and day out, the legacy of the 40th president still looms large over the national conversation, some 21 years after he left the Oval Office and nearly six years after his death — thanks in part to a deliberate campaign of distortion by modern conservatives, a Reagan myth has been used to justify disastrous spending policies at home and disastrous militarism abroad .
This week also marks the new paperback release of my book, now slightly retitled: "Tear Down This Myth: The Right Wing Distortion of the Reagan Legacy." When I was working on the book in 2008 in preparation for the original hardcover version, I did worry somewhat whether the likely election of a center-left Democratic president would render as moot the power of the Reagan myth. As it turned out, the inauguration of Barack Obama and the arrival of a large Democratic majority in Congress instead showed the limits of government in the face of this powerful philosophy that is loosely based on Reagan’s 1980s presidency but distorts or exaggerates the reality of much of what happened in those years.
The Reagan banner as carried by today’s conservatives involves deep and unrelenting mistrust of the government to solve any problems, even as crises from joblessness and unsound fiscal policies and a lack of a serious approach to energy and global warming fester from a lack of… problem solving. Reagan’s predecessor, Jimmy Carter, captured the White House in the election after Watergate by promising "a government as good as the people," but when Carter stumbled for a host of reasons, Reagan was elected with a much different message. In his 1981 inauguration, he said: "In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problems — government is the problem."
Little remembered is that in the same speech, Reagan also said: "Now, so there will be no misunderstanding, it is not my intention to do away with government. It is, rather, to make it work—work with us, not over us; to stand by our side, not ride on our back." But is the first message — that there is no government solution to any problem, no matter how complex — that has been hammered home by the powerful right-wing infrastructure, most notably talk radio and now the highly rated Fox News Channel on TV, that has endured and grown since Reagan’s tenure in office.
Buy Tear Down This Myth: How the Reagan Legacy Has Distorted Our Politics and Haunts Our Future
eNews Park Forest Editors Endorse John C. Griffin for Judge in the 15th Subcircuit
Our pick for judge in the 15th Subcircuit, Phelan vacancy, is Judge John C. Griffin of Palos Heights. Griffin has four opponents, and was appointed to the bench in 2008. He sits in the Chancery Division.
Judge Griffin is a true Democrat. One of his opponents in the Democratic Primary is a life-long Republican who is seeking election in 2010 as a Democrat. This opponent has stated that he recognizes that it’s impossible to be elected from this region as a Republican. This opponent has been Republican supervisor in Bloom Township for several years (having defeated now State Senator Toi Hutchinson when she ran as the Democratic candidate for supervisor in 2005).
When endorsing judges, we rely on the experts, especially experts who belong to bar associations.
The Chicago Council of Lawyers found Judge Griffin qualified, writing:
Judge Griffin was admitted to practice in 1976. For 31 years he was in private practice
primarily handling real estate, zoning and development-related matters. In March 2008, he was
appointed by the Illinois Supreme Court to a judicial vacancy. He has served in Traffic Court
and currently presides over mortgage foreclosure matters in the Foreclosure/Mechanic’s Lien
Section. Judge Griffin is reported to have good legal ability and an excellent temperament. He
had a good reputation as a hard-working and knowledgeable attorney and is praised for his
courtroom management skills and for being well-prepared. The Council finds him Qualified for
the Circuit Court.In addition, Judge Griffin has been found qualified or recommended (per each organization’s policies) by all associations performing review:
- The Chicago Bar Association – Qualified
- Illinois State Bar Association – Qualified
- Cook County Bar Association – Recommended
- Chicago Council of Lawyers – Qualified
- Women’s Bar Association of Illinois – Recommended
- Lesbian and Gay Bar Association of Chicago – Recommended
- Puerto Rican Bar Association of Illinois – Highly Qualified
- The Decalogue Society of Lawyers – Recommended
- Asian American Bar Association – Recommended
- Hellenic Bar Association of Illinois – Recommended
- Black Women Lawyers’ Association of Greater Chicago, Inc. – Recommended
We give Judge John C. Griffin our highest recommendation, and encourage all in the 15th Subcircuit to vote for him.
I’m quoting the entire endorsement — with permission — but I want to focus on one point in particular.
What, indeed is a Democrat? What, indeed, is a Republican?
One of John Griffin’s opponents was a Republican who ran as a Republican against Congressman Jesse L. Jackson Jr.; and he was the unsuccessful Republican candidate against Democratic Judge Anna Demacopoulos in 2008.