Reading Around on August 25th

Some additional reading August 25th from 10:32 to 16:21:

• Emptywheel » Was John Yoo Free-Lancing When He Approved the “Legal Principles”? –

  “Earlier today, I showed that there is a CIA document on the “Legal Principles” on torture that included legal justifications that had not been in any of the August 1, 2002 OLC memos authorizing torture. I showed that the document changed over time, but that when CIA asked Jack Goldsmith to “re-affirm” the Legal Principles in March 2004, he stated that he did not consider the document to be a product of OLC.

  I have further inquired into the circumstances surrounding the creation of the bullet points in the spring of 2003. These inquiries have reconfirmed what I have conveyed to you before, namely, that the bullet points did not and do not represent an opinion or a statement of the views of this Office.

  It seems–reading Jack Goldsmith and John Ashcroft’s objections to the CIA IG Report–that John Yoo was free-lancing when he worked with CIA on them.”

  Why does John Yoo have a job at Berkley? and why does he *still* have it?

  

• AP again advances falsehood that health reform “will mean cuts in Medicare benefits” | Media Matters for America – AP again advances falsehood that health reform “will mean cuts in Medicare benefits” In an August 24 article, the Associated Press uncritically reported that “[s]eniors worry that paying for the $1 trillion-plus, 10-year [health care] overhaul will mean cuts in Medicare benefits” without noting that, in the words of FactCheck.org, “[t]he claim that Obama and Congress are cutting seniors’ Medicare benefits to pay for the health care overhaul is outright false.” Additionally, AARP has also rebutted the notion that health reform will reduce Medicare benefits
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  “Fela: This Bitch of a Life” (Carlos Moore)

• Music Monday: Fela Kuti’s Bitch of a Life – Carlos Moore’s Fela: This Bitch of a Life, the newly rereleased 1982 authorized biography of Africa’s greatest musician, Fela Anikulapo Kuti. Well, sexism and police brutality. The book, translated from the French, is essentially a well-organized and very long interview of Fela at his peak. For die-hard fans of the original Black President this may be a enticing read