Monday Monday

Gorby Trashtalks Bush & Cheney Judy Mathewson and Todd Prince for Bloomberg report on comments made by former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Via HuffPo --- Right-Wingers Out of Control - In Japan This Time Steve Clemons has a post on "Japan's Right-Wingers Out of Control." He reports on the hostility of conservative political ideologues towards facts and the historical record, "who want to take Japan back to the 1930s." Steve really is discussing Japan politics straight up - he's not drawing any parallels to conservative smear campaigns which might be seen and heard elsewhere on the globe. --- War Profiteering Okayed By Judge Paul Kiel at TPM Muckraker reports that a federal judge overturned a jury award of $10 mil against "defense contractor" Custer Battles. Paul links to the AP story by Matthew Barakat, who says:But U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III, in a ruling made public Friday, ruled that Custer Battles' accusers failed to prove that the U.S. government was ever defrauded. Any fraud that occurred was perpetrated instead against the Coalition Provisional Authority, formed to run Iraq until a government was established. Ellis ruled that the trial evidence failed to show that the U.S. government was the victim, even though U.S. taxpayers ultimately footed the bill. Alan Grayson, lawyer for whistle-blowers Robert Isakson and William Baldwin, said he would appeal. He faulted the Bush administration for creating the CPA in a manner that essentially allowed it to act as a money launderer for unscrupulous military contractors.--- Imagine/Walk on the Wild Side Rx at thepartyparty.com has put music to a montage of clips of political faces. Via Norm at onegoodmove , who also has the video.