Open Thread.

Sean Hoare, the first journalist to expose the phone hacking scandal and Andy Coulson, has been found dead at his home. Hoare originally went to the New York Times with the story. He recently disclosed that reporters paid police to be able to "ping" the phones of celebrities.

He said journalists were able to use a technique called "pinging" which measured the distance between mobile handsets and a number of phone masts to pinpoint its location.

Hoare gave further details about the use of "pinging" to the Guardian last week. He described how reporters would ask a news desk executive to obtain the location of a target: "Within 15 to 30 minutes someone on the news desk would come back and say 'right that's where they are.'"

More on the pinging here. [More...]

"I think the College Republicans here would say I'm a pretty liberal President but if you read the Huffington Post you think I was some right wing tool of Wall Street. Both things can't be true. - President Barack Obama

I came across that video at Hullabaloo and Digby points to d-day's reaction to it. I want to share my own before I react to d-day's. It is in my title - some things are true. For example, it is true that:

(1) the 2009 stimulus was inadequate for the problems in the economy; (2) HAMP was a failure; (3) the Bush tax cuts were extended in December 2010 without an agreement on the budget or the debt ceiling; (4) the debt ceiling deal Obama seems on the verge of making will not be good for the economy; (5) Democrats were walloped in the 2010 elections; (6) the 2012 election looks like it is gonna be close, much closer than the 2008 election.

Let's assume for the moment that the truths described above are not what the President intended. What is his explanation for these results? Do these truths justify his approach to politics and the Presidency? If so, why? After all, the president is basically justifying himself in that video. Perhaps he could explain why the truths I list occurred if his approach was the right one. More . . .

Jed Lewison:

Washington Post:

"A bipartisan effort in the Senate to allow President Obama to raise the federal debt ceiling in exchange for about $1.5 trillion in spending cuts over 10 years gained momentum Sunday, as leaders agreed they would have to act in the next two weeks to avert a potential default by the U.S. government.[...] The plan would also create a new congressional panel that would, by the end of the year, seek to come up with a way of reducing the deficit potentially by trillions more through cuts in entitlements and other new tax revenue."

Jed writes "[T]hat's not a balanced deal. In fact, like Ezra Klein, I can't imagine Republicans getting a better outcome. [. . .] Using the debt limit as a hostage to force sharp spending cuts without raising revenue is exactly what Republicans have been fighting for. And if this is the plan, they may well be close to getting it." Yes, but this was predictable it seems to me, because well, I predicted it. And yes, this goes back to The Deal in December.

Speaking for me only

For those not watching Breaking Bad, there's also a new Big Brother and Food Network Star.

Marcy at Empty Wheel has moved from Firedoglake to her own digs at EmptyWheel.net. FDL has added The Dissenter, covering civil liberties and digital freedom issues.

It's a baby girl for Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner.

Law Prof Ellen Podgor at White Collar Crime Blog has some more thoughts on Roger Clemens' mistrial.

Rudy Giuliani says he believes in the presumption of innocence -- for Rupert Murdoch and NewsCorp.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

Even if you never watched Seasons 1-3, don't miss tonight's premiere of AMC's Breaking Bad, Season 4. (8 PM, Denver Time) It's the best show on television. Here's a review (no spoilers) of tonight's episode, The Box Cutter. The author says: "Every note of these opening episodes is pitch perfect, building a slow crescendo of what looks to be an impressively strong season."

While you're waiting, check out Nerve.com's clip of the best lines of "Better Call Saul", the show's sleazy defense lawyer.

Scotland Yard Chief Paul Stephenson's resignation statement, via the New York Times, as a result of the phone hacking scandal. Earlier today, Rebekkah Brooks was arrested when she showed up at police headquarters, thinking she was just going to answer questions.

Via the Daily Beast, The Man Who Busted Murdoch (Nick Davies.)

The trial of Mohammed Wali Zazi, father of admitted terrorist Najibullah Zazi (the airport van driver from Denver), charged with obstucting justice by lying to investigators about his son's activities and tampering with and destroying evidence to cover up his son's actions, begins tomorrow in federal court in Brooklyn.

The elder Zazi's brother-in-law, Naqib Jaji, will testify for the Government. The defense has said it will call Najibullah Zazi, who cooperated with the Government, pleaded guilty and has not yet been sentenced. Mohammed and Najibullah have not spoken in two years. [More...]

Open Thread.

A reporter from The Atlantic visiting his parents in Orange County, CA, home to one of 10 theaters across the country playing a new documentary about Sarah Palin, decided to go check it out and maybe interview some of those in attendance. Only no one showed up.

He watched it alone (except when two tourists walked in, not knowing the movie was about Palin, and they left after 20 minutes.):

"We looked online for the latest movie playing," Jessie added. "But all the Harry Potters were sold out, and then we saw 'The Undeafeated.' We don't even actually know what we're seeing."

Probably wasn't the action flick they were expecting. At the end, a couple came in to sit in the back row and make out, but they left too. So the reporter had no one to interview. [More...]

Krugman:

Everyone in the forecasting business is scrambling to mark down both their estimates of second-quarter growth and their forecasts for later in the year. Goldman Sachs (no link) was pretty optimistic a few months ago; now they�ve grown quite pessimistic[. . . .] At this point, GS is predicting an unemployment rate of 8 3/4 percent at the end of 2012 � five years after the Great Recession began.

The New Normal:

So, terrible growth prospects; low inflation; oh, and low interest rates, with no sign of the bond vigilantes. Ordinary macroeconomic analysis tells you very clearly what we should be doing: fiscal expansion and monetary expansion by any means we can manage[. . .] And what are we talking about in policy terms? Spending cuts and an end to monetary expansion.

I am supporting President Obama for reelection because the alternative is worse. But there is an argument to be made that it is a terrible precedent for a President to win reelection with terrible economic policies that treat 9% unemployment as the New Normal.

Speaking for me only

We have sunshine today, so I'm not going to spend the day at the computer.

For those of you following the Rupert Murdoch news empire misadventures, here's the latest on the resignations of Lee Hinton, the publisher of the WSJ and Rebekkah Brooks, who ran the British papers. U.S. connections to the phone-hacking scandal are growing.

Here's a Kaiser report on the fiscal effect of raising the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

Here is the transcript of the final day of the Roger Clemens trial, which ended with a mistrial after the Government played a video and showed a transcript to the jury containing the very statements of Andrew Pettitte's wife Laura that only a week earlier, the Court had ruled inadmissible.

There was no snafu, no playing of the wrong tape, and no forgetting to edit or redact the tape and transcript. The Government acted deliberately. [More...]

I've been following the amounts we spend on the war on drugs for a while. (More here.) Here's today's sequel.

Our Justice Department thinks that technology is hampering its ability to wiretap our phones. So it wants more money. From the DEA's 2012 Budget: [More...]

It's still raining. Thunder, lightening, the whole nine yards. 9 days and counting.

Speaking of Who'll Stop the Rain (one of my favorite movies with Nick Nolte, Tuesday Weld and Michael Moriarty about Vietnam, heroin, Haight-Ashbury, federal drug agents and Percodan), I watched the Lincoln Lawyer last night. It was good -- not as great as some of the reviews, but worth seeing.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.