Four passings in MLB to open the season

It feels so out of place here, in this sport that begins each new season with hope and promise and dreams as fresh as the return of spring.

And yet, just one week into the 2009 season, a death rattle has drowned out the joyous sound of “play ball.”

Last Thursday it was Nick Adenhart, the 22-year-old Los Angeles Angels pitcher killed in a car accident that also claimed the lives of two friends. Three days earlier -- on opening day -- it was Brian Powers, a 27-year-old Angels fan, found bleeding and unconscious in an Angels Stadium stairwell after a fatal altercation with other spectators.

Monday came the news that Harry Kalas, the legendary broadcaster of the Philadelphia Phillies since 1971, was found dead at age 73 in a broadcast booth in Washington, preparing for an afternoon game against the Nationals.

And then just hours later, one more shock: Mark “the Bird” Fidrych, one of the game’s purest characters, was found under his 10-wheel truck on his Massachusetts farm, dead of an apparent accident at age 54.

A promising player. A hometown fan. An unforgettable voice. A baseball original. All gone in the season’s first week.

Moments of silence, like the one they held for Kalas here Monday night, where the New York Mets were opening their new ballpark, Citi Field, have become as commonplace this misbegotten spring as the seventh-inning stretch.

Gingrich, Beck, FOX all bet against US vs. pirates

Before it goes down the memory hole:



Back to reality:

(M)embers of the Navy Seals were flown in by fixed-wing aircraft. They parachuted into the sea with inflatable boats and were picked up by the Bainbridge. On Sunday, the pirates, their fuel gone, were drifting toward the Somali coast. They agreed to accept a tow from the Bainbridge, the senior officials said. At first, the towline was 200 feet long, but as darkness gathered and seas became rough, the towline was shortened to 100 feet, the officials said. It was unclear if this was done with the pirates’ knowledge.

At dusk, a single tracer bullet was seen fired from the lifeboat. The intent was unclear, but it ratcheted up the tension and Seal snipers at the stern rail of the Bainbridge fixed night-vision scopes to their high-powered rifles, getting ready for action.

What they saw was the head and shoulders of two of the pirates emerging from the rear hatch of the lifeboat. Through the window of the front hatch they saw the third pirate, pointing his AK-47 at the back of Captain Phillips, who was seen to be tied up.

That was it: the provocation that fulfilled the president’s order to act only if the captain’s life was in imminent danger, and the opportunity of having clear shots at each captor. The order was given. Senior defense officials, themselves marveling at the skill of the snipers, said each took a target and fired one shot.

The Wrangle for Tax Day (and Teabaggin' Week)

AKA the Texas Progressive Alliance's Weekly Round-Up.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme noticed Fort Bend County was slapped by the DOJ for actual election integrity problems. Voters were illegally denied provisional ballots and Spanish speakers were not accommodated. Betty Brown probably wishes those voters would make life easier for English-speaking poll workers.

BossKitty at TruthHugger cannot accept that tax laws, tax jegislation and lawmakers are ignorant to the fact that keeping the taxpayer clueless brings in more revenue. Intentional vagueness and contradiction guarantee more tax dollars collected. This country has brainwashed its taxpayers; it is easier to waste their money on sleazy preparers and tax software than to learn what taxes are all about. Taxpayers are complicit in their own misery, even though the government really tries to make the facts available. We've been convinced that taxes are just a necessary evil ... "Death and Taxes". But today, Can You Trust Your Tax Software When It Can't Keep Up.

Neil at Texas Liberal posted a video using Franklin Roosevelt and George W. Bush dolls to illustrate the recent liberal ascendancy in the United States.

We all had some fun at Rep. Betty Brown's expense last week, but Off the Kuff noted that there was a bill pending before Rep. Brown's Elections Committee that would actually help alleviate some of the problems that prevent eligible citizens from casting their ballots.

At Texas Kaos, it's been a bemusing week of watching Glenn Beck prepare to storm the Alamo City with Tea Bags. But nothing could have prepared us for Rick Perry linking his fortunes with Beck after his gasoline-drenched performance Apparently a primary threat in the Texas Republican Party means you double down on the batshit crazy lies. Who knew?

Kim Jong Il wasn't the only person to fire a missile this week. McBlogger went ballistic over that dapper Senator Watson.

The Employee Free Choice Act met the Democratic Senator from the Great State of Wal-Mart and is headed down to defeat as a result. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs has more on the Senate's caving in once again to the corporations.

Asian American Action Fund Blog has extensive coverage of Betty Brown's ridiculous questioning of Ramey Ko, from our first report to Brown's apology and Ko's description of their conversation. In addition, there are link roundups of most coverage of the incident from April 9th and 10th. And don't miss law professor Frank Wu's exploration of the matter.

Vince at Capitol Annex takes a look at the 20 Republicans in the Texas House who voted against education benefits for veterans of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Teabagging Parties, sponsored by FOX

The Right's latest grassroots gaffe, coming to a conservative media show near you this week, demonstrates once more that astroturf has no root system. Steve Benen:

Media Matters' Karl Frisch notes Glenn Beck's role in this week's Tea-bagging events. It points to a larger truth that often goes overlooked.

Beck isn't just helping with turnout. Discussing his participation in the upcoming protest at the Alamo in San Antonio on his syndicated radio program, Beck announced, "I'm going to do a fundraiser for them" to help defray costs. "So you can come and you can have lunch with me. ... I don't know any of the details, but I've heard it's like $500 a plate or something like that."

How much to throw up on Glenn Beck's shoes? What do you say to buying Colbert and Stewart a couple of seats at the head table?

While the notion of someone paying $500 to have lunch near Glenn Beck is itself amusing, I think Oliver Willis captures the broader significance: "When people were protesting the Iraq war, they didn't have $500-a-plate fundraisers. Then again, they didn't have sponsorship from Fox News, the backing of corporate lobbyists and the attendance of prominent conspiracy theorists like Alan Keyes."

Right. Even after all the teaching moments of the last decade or so, it seems the right still doesn't quite get the meaning of the word "grassroots." Conservatives still seem wedded to a top-down model.

We've seen this play out several times of late. Remember "Freedom's Watch"? Conservatives decided they needed their own version of MoveOn.org, so some loyal Bushies went to a right-wing billionaire for seed money, and the top-down game was in motion. The result, despite considerable hype, was a bust, and the far-right group has already folded.

There's some evidence to suggest the Tea Parties are following a similar trajectory. These right-wing events aren't just coming together naturally; they're the product of Fox News and corporate lobbyists. This is practically a textbook example of "astroturf." That Glenn Beck is charging $500 a plate to have lunch with him to help subsidize the effort only helps reinforce the larger dynamic.

Conservatives too often think, "We'll get some money together, deliver a right-wing message, and the grassroots will come together. It'll be awesome." Except it never is.

This isn't to say turnout will necessarily be low on Wednesday; I wouldn't be surprised if far-right voters turned out in substantial numbers. The point is, corporate-sponsored events thrown together with no clear purpose or specific aims are not the foundation for a political movement or effective activism.

Any group who protests lower taxes on themselves and a 3% higher marginal tax increase on the wealthy deserves all of the respect they get.

But you know what these people really need? A community organizer. ;^)

A gathering of expensive douchebags

At a committee meeting in Austin -- where else:


Or as Susan Peterson of the Texas Observer more delicately phrased it, "a million dollars in billable hours".

Easter Bunny Calls on Congress to Rethink Afghanistan

As the White House conducts its traditional Easter egg roll, Brave New Foundation's Rethink Afghanistan campaign will have several Easter Bunnies distributing and hiding more than 6,000 Easter eggs in New York City and Washington DC. The eggs will be stuffed with toy soldiers serving as a reminder of the troops currently stationed in Afghanistan along with a series of poignant questions that have yet to be raised about the war on Afghanistan.

Thousands of soldiers serving in Afghanistan will be away from their families this Easter. These soldiers will soon be joined by an additional 21,000 troops. Congress has yet to call substantial oversight hearings on whether the troop escalation makes sense.

"Easter is a time for renewal. As American Christian families celebrate this holiday, we must renew our commitment to one of Jesus Christ's most important commitments: peace. We must to re-engage our country in a national debate and ask the questions that have yet to be raised about the Afghanistan war."

In a recent trip to Kabul, Hollywood director and activist Robert Greenwald interviewed local Afghans who consistently expressed a desire for the US to end its seven-year occupation in Afghanistan. Many of them cited the American occupation as fueling pro-Taliban sentiment in Afghanistan.

"Congress needs to assert its role in critical oversight as we continue to add troops and money to a war that has already cost billions of dollars. The American people deserves answers to important questions such as: are we really helping in Afghanistan if human rights are getting worse."

View the 'Rethink Afghanistan' documentary here.

Count me in opposition to another of President Obama's recent policies: escalation in Ahghanistan.

On October 2, 2002, Barack Obama -- then an Illinois state senator -- gave a speech opposing going to war in Iraq. That speech, at that time, would prove crucial to his election, first as a US Senator two years later, and then as President, four years after that. Democrats who equivocated were a dime a dozen. Obama stood out, because he stood up when others did not, and said, “This is wrong.”

He did not oppose all wars. He cited the Civil War and World War II as specific examples of necessary ones. But, he said, “I’m opposed to dumb wars.” Yet on January 23, his third full day as President, Obama ordered two separate air strikes in Pakistan, killing 14 civilians, along with four suspected terrorists. One strike killed six civilians along with four suspected terrorists staying in their home, the other simply hit the wrong target, the home of a pro-government tribal elder, Malik Deen Faraz in the Gangikhel area of South Waziristan, killing him, his three sons and a grandson, along with three others.

Now President Obama has made it official: in addition to another 17,000 troops promised early, he made an additional pledge of 4,000 more on Friday, March 27. It was reportedly a ‘carefully calibrated’ decision, these would be trainers not combat troops, we were told. But Ray McGovern, a 27-year CIA veteran, whose career included long stretches preparing security briefs for Presidents Reagan and Bush Sr., was not impressed with such fine distinctions.

“I was wrong,” McGovern wrote about his belief that Obama’s campaign rhetoric regarding escalation in Afghanistan would not be followed through. “I kept thinking to myself that when he got briefed on the history of Afghanistan and the oft-proven ability of Afghan ‘militants’ to drive out foreign invaders - from Alexander the Great, to the Persians, the Mongolians, Indians, British, Russians - he would be sure to understand why they call mountainous Afghanistan the ‘graveyard of empires.’”

Perhaps Obama got that briefing, perhaps he didn’t. But one thing is certain, McGovern went on to explain: he did not get the kind of intelligence briefing that used to be standard before the Bush regime consigned them to irrelevancy. Traditionally, the national intelligence estimate (NIE) had been the core intelligence product used to summarize the collective advice of the intelligence community, but as USA Today reported on September 11, 2002 (”Iraq Course Set From Tight White House Circle”), no NIE had been prepared on the topic of invading Iraq.

“An intelligence official says that’s because the White House doesn’t want to detail the uncertainties that persist about Iraq’s arsenal and Saddam’s intentions. A senior administration official says such an assessment simply wasn’t seen as helpful,” USA Today reported, adding, “Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, calls that ’stunning.’

‘If we are about to make a decision that could risk American lives, we need full and accurate information on which to base that decision,’ he says in a letter sent Tuesday to leaders of the committee and CIA Director George Tenet.”