Viva La Green Day

by digby

What Howie says, squared. I’m crazy about this new Green Day album too. Our mutual affinity for the band isn’t surprising to me since Howie and I swam in the same punk and power pop musical pond in San Francisco back in the day, although Howie was a renowned underground DJ while I was merely a spectator. (He famously started a label and became a music mogul, while I nursed a long hangover, but that’s another story…) The minute I heard Green Day some years later, I knew they were from the Bay Area. It was a sound that seemed to be recognized somewhere deep in my DNA and I’ve always loved them.

During the Dark Days of Bush and Cheney, they were among the small handful of successful artists who were paying attention to what was really going on and had the courage to use their artistic platform to talk about it (as opposed to appearing at a rally somewhere while making music about bullshit so as not to cause a conflict between their “politics” and their “business” as so many others did.) With few exceptions, commercial political art was left to the flag waving country artists who boldly stood with Real America and the corporations which owned them. (These same Real Americans are now agitating for secession, but whatever.)

But, setting aside both Howie’s excitement and mine over this new album, Howie makes a larger point about the music business (and American business in general) with his post that is important to note:

[A]ccording to yesterday’s NY Times the release couldn’t have come at a better time for Warner Bros, their label. Reporting on the cascading economics of the music industry, the Times points to CD sales that have been cut in half in the last 10 years. Warner Bros doesn’t really stay in business by selling music; they sell bonds to investors who get sold a bill of goods.

Last week the group led by Edgar Bronfman Jr. decided to try to sell $500 million of new bonds to replace some of its existing debt and extend the overall maturity of its liabilities.

Like tickets for a 1970s concert for The Who, investors practically stampeded to get their hands on the paper. Investors were so enthusiastic that the company expanded the deal and sold $1.1 billion of senior secured notes. As a result, Warner paid off all its existing debt and extended the date by which it needed to pay it back until 2016.

U.S. Treasury bonds, for the same time span, are offering a modest 3.4% return while the Warner Music bonds are offering a juicy 9.5% annually. Some people never learn but unless Green Day puts out an album like 21st Century Breakdown every year between now and 2016, my guess is that the suckers who bought the bonds– or, more likely, the poor saps they get unloaded on– will wish they had stuck with the Treasuries… or invested their retirement funds in autographed Green Day memorabilia.

Again — still — the scams continue, and the public buys into financial magical thinking. The irony, of course, is that it’s exactly that kind of mindlessness that Green Day is talking about.

Howie updates his post with this:

The American record industry allowed itself to be bamboozled into giving WalMart and similar operations a near monopoly over their music. It was a catastrophe for them and their artists, especially emerging artists who now have no place to sell their CDs. But it should be no problem for a superstar act like Green Day, right? Well, no. Green Day won’t self-censor their songs, which WalMart demands of artists, even platinum-selling ones. So they’re not carrying 21st Century Breakdown. Billie Joe isn’t budging. “They want artists to censor their records in order to be carried in there. We just said no. We’ve never done it before. You feel like you’re in 1953 or something.”

No kidding.

Here’s Howie on the music:

I might as well admit that the whole post was just an excuse for me to kick back and work on a clip for a Green Day song. It’s a daunting task because the songs are so amazing that even before I start looking for photos, I know there’s no chance I can do the music justice. It’s kept me at bay all week. But… There are two songs called “Viva La Gloria!” (well one is “Viva La Gloria?”) that are woven into the only artistically successful rock opera I’ve ever heard. I’m opting for “Viva La Gloria?” more because there are homages that remind me of the Doors and Queen than because I like it any more than the other–!– rendition.

Viva La Gloria by Green Day from Howie Klein on Vimeo.

Update: Thinking about about Green Day keeping hope alive for me during the Dark Days reminds me that Matt Stoller sent along an email over the week-end that I’ve been meaning to pass on:

American democracy is a sprawling concept. There are hundreds of thousands of elected public positions in this country, along with tens of thousands of open meetings to consider public policy. There is candidate recruiting, volunteering, fundraising, policy-making, and campaigning for all of these positions, one way or another. And post-election, there is pressure, participation, and idea generation, all built on a civic culture that encourages people, or discourages them, from taking power and being a part of decision-making. A civic culture dominated by politicized hypernationalist conservative groups and a highly organized resource-extractive financial elite leads to certain policy outcomes, and a civic culture dominated by younger multicultural leaders focused on a sustainable society leads to a different set of policy outcomes.

Much of the damage that has happened in the last ten years has come, not from poor political leadership (though bad political leadership hasn’t helped), but from the apathetic civic culture on the left, which has been defeated by a powerfully aggressive conservative civic culture. Fortunately, a lot of us noticed this problem, and some of us started organizing to fix it. And I think we saw with the Congressional elections of 2006 and 2008, and of course, President Obama, that a culture of empowerment can change political leadership. What most of us didn’t see, however, were the cultural entrepreneurs that set the stage for allowing this change to happen.

One of them, and an important one, is Justin Krebs of Living Liberally. Living Liberally’s primary function is to run a network of clubs all over the country called Drinking Liberally, where liberals come together and socialize. There are more than 300 of these clubs, in every state (including more than 13 in Texas and 4 in Idaho). These clubs are used as recruiting grounds for volunteers and candidates, networking hubs for influential local opinion leaders, stops on liberal book tours, and places where campaigns around local and state issues can be launched. Often, the leader of a Drinking Liberally chapter will be recruited into a political or advocacy position, because it turns out that being able to organize a fun and lively get-together every week is a good screen for natural leadership abilities. Basically, they are cultural centers where people who don’t know any other liberals like them can get together and socialize. There are a lot of reasons it’s a very good idea to have a strong network of such clubs, but let me give you a tangible way to think about it.

For most Democrats thinking of running for Congress in the 1990s, a political ‘base’ meant a set of wealthy people. You had to either self-fund, work at a law firm with wealthy partners, or have a strong connection to well-capitalized interests. Today, because of Drinking Liberally, you can find a bunch of ordinary people with widespread community networks, and tap into small dollar internet fundraising, just by going to a bar on a regular basis. Think about the change that creates in who can run for office, and how they can run. Think about what that means for changing the incentives in politics.

That is just one small part of what a strong liberal civic culture means. Now, obviously, a lot more needs to be done. And I can’t quantify how many people got elected, how many volunteers went out and volunteers, or engaged in policy changes because of this organization, though many many politicians attend these gatherings or ensure their staffers go. But I can assure you that tens of thousands of highly engaged people are able to get together and organize, learn how they can make an impact, and build a new civic culture, brick by brick.

Drinking Liberally operates on a budget of less than $100k a year. There’s no foundation funding for this group and obviously the economy is awful. I know I’m feeling the pinch, as are a lot of my friends. But this is when we have to keep organizations like this alive, because this kind of social value, though hard to quantify, takes years to recreate. And I can assure you that the costs of a weak civic culture are far higher than a hundred bucks today.

So if you can, I highly encourage you to come to their annual celebration on May 30 in New York City, and buy a ticket. If you can’t make it, or just want to support this work, you can give some money here.

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Context

by digby

For anyone who is interested in knowing what Sotomayor actually said as opposed to what the wingnuts are robotically mouthing, here’s the full quote:

From Sotomayor’s speech delivered at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law and published in 2002 in the Berkeley La Raza Law Journal:

In our private conversations, Judge Cedarbaum has pointed out to me that seminal decisions in race and sex discrimination cases have come from Supreme Courts composed exclusively of white males. I agree that this is significant but I also choose to emphasize that the people who argued those cases before the Supreme Court which changed the legal landscape ultimately were largely people of color and women. I recall that Justice Thurgood Marshall, Judge Connie Baker Motley, the first black woman appointed to the federal bench, and others of the NAACP argued Brown v. Board of Education. Similarly, Justice Ginsburg, with other women attorneys, was instrumental in advocating and convincing the Court that equality of work required equality in terms and conditions of employment.

Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. Justice O’Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am not so sure Justice O’Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes that line to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.

Let us not forget that wise men like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Justice Cardozo voted on cases which upheld both sex and race discrimination in our society. Until 1972, no Supreme Court case ever upheld the claim of a woman in a gender discrimination case. I, like Professor Carter, believe that we should not be so myopic as to believe that others of different experiences or backgrounds are incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group. Many are so capable. As Judge Cedarbaum pointed out to me, nine white men on the Supreme Court in the past have done so on many occasions and on many issues including Brown.

However, to understand takes time and effort, something that not all people are willing to give. For others, their experiences limit their ability to understand the experiences of others. Other simply do not care. Hence, one must accept the proposition that a difference there will be by the presence of women and people of color on the bench. Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see.

One can’t know for sure that the fact that Chief Justice John Roberts, who has so far voted every single time with the ruling elites was affected by his personal experience as a privileged white male, coddled, groomed and rewarded from his earliest days by the conservative establishment he served, but it certainly isn’t unfair to think he might have been.

Moreover, her sentence about the “wise Latina” is qualified in the very next paragraph with, “I, like Professor Carter, believe that we should not be so myopic as to believe that others of different experiences or backgrounds are incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group. Many are so capable. As Judge Cedarbaum pointed out to me, nine white men on the Supreme Court in the past have done so on many occasions and on many issues including Brown.”

This is going to be a very annoying argument, but it’s perfectly in keeping with the ongoing degradation of our political discourse. All humans bring their personal experiences to everything they do. Even judges. Admitting this, and believing that your experience gives you a unique insight into certain aspects of how the world works, does not make you a “reverse racist.” In fact, very serious conservative legal intellectuals have argued exactly the same thing Sotomayor argued:

Yoo touted the unique perspective that he said Thomas brings to the bench. Yoo wrote that Thomas “is a black man with a much greater range of personal experience than most of the upper-class liberals who take potshots at him” and argued that Thomas’ work on the court has been influenced by his understanding of the less fortunate acquired through personal experience.

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Even The Liberal…

by dday

Jeffrey Rosen expressed shock today that conservatives have glommed on to his gossip piece calling into question the intelligence of Judge Sotomayor. Surely he was blindsided by such a turn of events. Why, Rosen was just allowing anonymous clerks to smear the nominee for the benefit of his friends in Washington. He could never have anticipated in a million years that anyone would use such materail against her.

Conservatives are already citing my initial piece on Sotomayor as a basis for opposing her. This willfully misreads both my piece and the follow-up response. My concern was that she might not make the most effective liberal voice on the Court–not that she didn’t have the potential to be a fine justice. Questions of temperament are often overlooked, but history suggests that they are the most relevant in predicting judicial success.

See, Rosen was making a narrow point, as exemplified by referring to Sotomayor as “not that smart,” “domineering during oral arguments,” and “her questions aren’t penetrating.” How anyone could have characterized from such a collection of quotes that she wasn’t qualified for the Court is just beyond him.

Indeed, every single conservative I’ve seen talking about this pick today, all of them, not only cited Rosen’s article, but when challenged on it as composed of a collection of unsourced quotes, screamed “But Jeff Rosen is a liberal and he’s writing for The New Republic and he said all this!” Which is how this ALWAYS works. Rosen is playing dumb here; surely he knew this would be the outcome. To his credit, the President ignored this character assassination. But it’s patently ridiculous for Rosen to suggest that everyone else would.

More here.

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Been There, Done That

by tristero

Here is some rightwing loon named Ralph Peters:

Pretending to be impartial, the self-segregating personalities drawn to media careers overwhelmingly take a side, and that side is rarely ours. Although it seems unthinkable now, future wars may require censorship, news blackouts and, ultimately, military attacks on the partisan media.

Sounds crazy, right? Beyond the pale, right? Deliberately killing journalists? That’s something we would never do, that’s NoKo/Saddam-level totalitarianism, plain and simple.

Well, Mr. and Ms. America, I got some news for you. It’s already happened. On April 8, 2003:

…a U.S. tank fired a shell at the Palestine Hotel, which housed most foreign correspondents in Baghdad, killing cameramen Taras Protsyuk of Reuters and José Couso of Spanish television channel Telecinco. U.S. troops claimed that they were responding to hostile fire emanating from the hotel. A CPJ investigative report published in May concluded that the shelling of the hotel, while not deliberate, was avoidable since U.S. commanders knew that journalists were in the hotel but failed to relay this information to soldiers on the ground.

On August 12, U.S. Central Command (Centcom) issued a news release summarizing the results of its investigation into the incident, which determined that the tank unit that opened fire on the hotel did so “in a proportionate and justifiably measured response.” Centcom called the shelling “fully in accordance with the Rules of Engagement.” While Centcom’s summary was mostly consistent with CPJ’s findings, it failed to address one of the conclusions in CPJ’s report: U.S. commanders knew that journalists were in the Palestine Hotel but failed to convey this knowledge to forces on the ground. CPJ has urged Centcom to make the full report public, but a Centcom spokesperson told CPJ on August 13 that the report is classified. At press time, CPJ was still waiting for the Defense Department to respond to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests related to both April 8 attacks.

We must never forget how seriously criminal the Bush administration’s behavior was in 2002 and 2003. And there is only one way for the country to put it behind us and that is by serious investigations and indictments. That, to our everlasting shame, is very unlikely to happen.

PS In case you’re inclined to trust the public version of the military’s classified report, Reporters sans frontieres called the official version “Two Murders and a Lie”. And Amy Goodman has an interview in which we learn that the Palestine Hotel was listed as a military target , ie, it was no accident of war.

Update: from digby

This wasn’t the only wacko thing the sick piece of work Ralph Peters said today on Fox. Get this:

“We’re dealing with people who aren’t human anymore. They’re monsters. And monsters deserve to die.”

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Conflict Of Interest

by digby

John Yoo should keep his yap shut about the Sotomayor nomination and not just because complaints about thin, ideological legal reasoning coming from his pen is cause for wild gales of laughter. He should keep his mouth shut because he needs all the friends he can get on the Supreme Court. It’s not beyond the realm of possibility that he could find himself the subject of a case in which the Supremes must decide whether he can be indicted for war crimes.

It looks as though nobody is willing to pursue that at the moment, but nobody thought there could possibly be a taping system in the Nixon White House either. Anything could happen. He needs his lawyer to tell him to STFU.

Update: not to put too fine a point on it, but Yoo complaining about the use of “empathy” in the law is just sick, considering his legal reasoning with respect to torture.

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Norm’s Firm Judgment

by digby

I know you’ve all been waiting with bated breath to hear what Norm Loserman has to say about the nomination:

“When debating judges, I was firm that I would use the same standard to evaluate judges under a Democrat President as I would a Republican President. Are they intellectually competent, do they have a record of integrity, and most importantly, are they committed to following the Constitution rather than creating new law and policy. When I am re-elected, I intend to review Judge Sotomayor’s record using this process. Certainly, the nomination of a Hispanic woman to the nation’s highest court is something all American’s should applaud.”

He sounds like one of those crazy guys who thinks he’s Napoleon and hangs around the bus station ordering the lost luggage pile to invade Russia.

You know what to do.

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Keep Fighting

by digby

Unsurprisingly, but depressing nonetheless, the California Supreme’s upheld Prop 8. Courage Campaign isn’t giving up:

PROP 8 UPHELD: Be fearless in response — Contribute now to air our new “Fidelity” TV ad across California. The California Supreme Court’s decision to uphold Proposition 8 is extremely disappointing, but we don’t have time to mourn their failure to restore marriage equality to California.

It’s time to go on offense. To be fearless in our fight for equality.
Starting right now.

Contribute here.

In response, the Courage Campaign will hit the California airwaves with a 60-second TV ad version of “Fidelity” — the heartbreaking online video viewed by more than 1.2 million people, making it the most-watched video ever in the history of California politics.

We are launching this provocative new TV ad in the spirit of Harvey Milk’s call
to “come out, come out wherever you are” and proudly tell the stories of the people most affected by the passage of Prop 8 — in moving images set to the beat of Regina Spektor’s beautiful song.

Watch the new “Fidelity” TV ad now and — if you want more people to see it — make a contribution to put it on the air in Bakersfield, Fresno, Los Angeles, San Diego, Sacramento and San Francisco.

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QOTD

by digby

I assume the right will insult the new Supreme Court nominee’s gender and ethnicity in a thousand different ways. But Glenn Beck, always in the vanguard, goes after her with an unexpectedly creative one:

“Does the nominee still have Diabetes? Could the Messiah heal her, or does she just not want to ask?”

This could be a very important avenue to explore during the confirmation hearings. Does anyone have Jeff Sessions’ email?

Update: The Republicans are evidently hungover this morning and accidentally sent out their talking points to the media.

Here are the talking points:

o President Obama’s nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court is an important decision that will have an impact on the United States long after his administration.

o Republicans are committed to a fair confirmation process and will reserve judgment until more is known about Judge Sotomayor’s legal views, judicial record and qualifications.

o Until we have a full view of the facts and comprehensive understanding of Judge Sotomayor’s record, Republicans will avoid partisanship and knee-jerk judgments – which is in stark contrast to how the Democrats responded to the Judge Roberts and Alito nominations.

o To be clear, Republicans do not view this nomination without concern. Judge Sotomayor has received praise and high ratings from liberal special interest groups. Judge Sotomayor has also said that policy is made on the U.S. Court of Appeals.

o Republicans believe that the confirmation process is the most responsible way to learn more about her views on a number of important issues.

o The confirmation process will help Republicans, and all Americans, understand more about judge Sotomayor’s thoughts on the importance of the Supreme Court’s fidelity to the Constitution and the rule of law.

o Republicans are the minority party, but our belief that judges should interpret rather than make law is shared by a majority of Americans.

o Republicans look forward to learning more about Judge Sotomayor’s legal views and to determining whether her views reflect the values of mainstream America.

President Obama on Judicial Nominees

o Liberal ideology, not legal qualification, is likely to guide the president’s choice of judicial nominees.

o Obama has said his criterion for nominating judges would be their “heart” and “empathy.”

o Obama said he believes Supreme Court justices should understand the Court’s role “to protect people who may be vulnerable in the political process.”

o Obama has declared: “We need somebody who’s got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it’s like to be a young teenage mom, the empathy to understand what it’s like to be poor or African-American or gay or disabled or old-and that’s the criterion by which I’ll be selecting my judges.”

Additional Talking Points

o Justice Souter’s retirement could move the Court to the left and provide a critical fifth vote for:

o Further eroding the rights of the unborn and property owners;

o Imposing a federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage;

o Stripping “under God” out of the Pledge of Allegiance and completely secularizing the public square;

o Abolishing the death penalty;

o Judicial micromanagement of the government’s war powers.

UPDATE: These points were represented in RNC Chairman Michael Steele’s statement on the nomination:

“Republicans look forward to learning more about federal appeals court judge Sonia Sotomayor’s thoughts on the importance of the Supreme Court’s fidelity to the Constitution and the rule of law,” he said. “Supreme Court vacancies are rare, which makes Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination a perfect opportunity for America to have a thoughtful discussion about the role of the Supreme Court in our daily lives. Republicans will reserve judgment on Sonia Sotomayor until there has been a thorough and thoughtful examination of her legal views.”

Chuck Shumer just reassured the MSNBC audience that “Obama, to his credit, didn’t nominate a far-out liberal,” so that should help. Gawd knows everybody hates liberals.

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Sotomayor

by dday

I caught the tail end of the announcement, which you probably know by now.

President Obama announced on Tuesday that he will nominate the federal appeals judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court, choosing a daughter of Puerto Rican parents raised in Bronx public housing projects to become the nation’s first Hispanic justice.

Judge Sotomayor, who stood next to the president during the announcement, was described by Mr. Obama as “an inspiring woman who I am confident will make a great justice.”

The president said he had made his decision after “deep reflection and careful deliberation,” and he made it clear that the judge’s inspiring personal story was crucial in his decision. Mr. Obama praised his choice as someone possessing “a rigorous intellect, a mastery of the law.”

But those essential qualities are not enough, the president said. Quoting Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Mr. Obama said, “The life of the law has not been logic, it has been experience.” It is vitally important that a justice know “how the world works, and how ordinary people live,” the president said.

She isn’t Pam Karlan or a darling of the left. She was nominated for her first judgeship by Bush 41, in fact. But in many ways, this is the sharpest pick Obama could have made. The Village tried to Swiftboat Sotomayor a few weeks ago, and Obama ignored it. Jeffrey Rosen basically called her a dumb broad, and picked up anonymous whispers to do it. This whisper campaign spread like wildfire. And a couple weeks ago, the entire Village got very interested in a New Haven firefighter’s case, likely to be reversed, where Sotomayor participated in an opinion striking down a promotions test showed no advancement for African-Americans. Chris Matthews put a figurative hardhat on and imagined himself an Irish tough getting passed over for a job, and we had a weeklong debate about affirmative action in the most empty way possible. Obama dismissed it.

We’re going to hear a lot from the right about these two quotes:

Judge Sotomayor has said her ethnicity and gender are important factors in serving on the bench, a point that could generate debate. “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life,” she said in a 2002 lecture.

She also once said at a conference that a “court of appeals is where policy is made,” a statement that has drawn criticism from conservatives who saw it as a sign of judicial activism. Judge Sotomayor seemed to understand at the time that she was making a controversial statement, adding that, “I know this is on tape, and I should never say that, because we don’t make law.”

It doesn’t appear from her case law that she has a ultra-liberal record, but on the thin reed of these two quotes, expect a whole mess of shrieking. Obama couldn’t care less.

He made his own decision based on his own best belief of who would make the best Justice. He didn’t curry favor with anyone, and certainly not the right or the DC establishment. In fact, he really stuck it to the latter. Good for him.

…Sotomayor appears to be an open book when it comes to executive power, sitting on an appeals court that simply didn’t hear very many cases of that type. Given that Obama has gone a bit too far, for my taste, when it concerns executive power, and the Supreme Court will certainly hear many of such cases, and the Court is closely divided on these issues, this will make a tremendous impact and in a perfect world it would become a big part of the debate. (Which it won’t, but…)

…Christy Hardin Smith has more. This Ricci case (the affirmative action case in New Haven) is going to be the MOST IMPORTANT JUDICIAL OPINION EVAH before we’re done.

…as Greenwald says here, that Jeffrey Rosen New Republic story has fast become the talking point from the right to “prove” that Sotomayor is somehow intellectually incapable. Much obliged!

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They’re Coming To Get You

by digby

Run for your lives:

“My insurance wasn’t good enough,” said Lord McWilliams, 20, who has a deadly liver disease.

His brother, David Williams, wanted money “to speed up the process,” McWilliams said. “Medicaid only goes so far.”

He dismissed as “crazy” federal accusations that Williams was a Jew-hater who wanted to wage jihad.

McWilliams said the FBI informant who lured his brother and three other hapless petty criminals into a plot to blow up synagogues and shoot down a plane promised enough money to take care of his transplant.

“[My brother] told me, ‘Don’t worry, when you go to the doctor, tell them you got money,'” McWilliams said.

McWilliams, who has already had his spleen removed, said his brother told him he would have $20,000 for the operation.

Their mother, Elizabeth McWilliams, said her older son had told her he would be able to give her a wad of cash Thursday, which was the day after the terrorist plot was to have been carried out.

“He was a loving, sweet kid. He took his brother’s illness worse than me,” she said.

Lord McWilliams said the informant, who often drove his brother to the hospital to visit, even promised to take him to Universal Studios when he was well again.

“He said I didn’t have to pay for nothing,” McWilliams said.

Federal prosecutors say Williams, 28; James Cromitie, 44; Laguerre Payen, 27, and Onta Williams, 32, all of upstate Newburgh, were militant Muslims caught on tape railing against Jews and plotting to blow up Jewish temples.

Federal prosecutors say Williams, 28; James Cromitie, 44; Laguerre Payen, 27, and Onta Williams, 32, all of upstate Newburgh, were militant Muslims caught on tape railing against Jews and plotting to blow up Jewish temples.

They were arrested last Wednesday while planting what they thought were plastic explosives outside two Riverdale synagogues.

They also had a Stinger missile – phony, supplied by the FBI – with which they allegedly planned to shoot down a military plane. Family and friends say the four were down-on-their luck ex-cons who apparently thought they would be paid by the FBI informant.

In dozens of interviews around Newburgh, no one can remember hearing any of the four talk of Jews or jihad. They had converted to Islam in prison, but they drank beer, ate pork and rarely prayed, family members said.

Obviously, we don’t know the whole story, but this sure sounds like so many other so-called terrorists plots that turned out to be a bunch of losers coerced into some stupid plan and then arrested with a bunch of phony fanfare. And the transplant angle is just mind-boggling. As Susie Madrak says:

I hardly know what to say. What’s worse: A healthcare system where someone is so desperate, he’d blow up buildings to pay for his brother’s treatment, or homeland security that thinks nothing of setting people up so they can claim they caught some “terrorists”?

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