The three Yale School of Medicine Doctors who sued after being fired for speaking out about dangerous diagnoses win a $5 million-plus verdict:

The doctors, Morton Burrell, Arthur Rosenfield and Robert Smith, filed the lawsuit in 2000. They claim they were retaliated against with salary cuts and removal from positions of authority after they criticized the treatment of patients in the diagnostic radiology department in the School of Medicine. The six-member Superior Court jury concluded the men spoke out as concerned citizens and Yale intentionally subjected them to discipline because of their comments…

…The lawsuit claims one misdiagnosis caused a patient death that could have been prevented. The doctors claim there were several misdiagnoses, such as a missed liver laceration in a trauma patient and a missed rectal carcinoma, because people with less training were doing work in place of experts. It claimed Dr. Bruce McClennan, chairman of the department of diagnostic imaging, directed radiology residents to do all exams ordered by emergency room personnel for emergency room patients, “without regard to clinical indications or medical necessity.” The plaintiffs claimed this was unethical and potentially illegal under Medicare.

Turns out the report that Bush’s national guard records had been “inadvertently” destroyed was itself “inadvertently” incorrect. Only, the records that have turned up fail to place Bush at national guard service for the three months he’s defending himself from charges of having missed:

The Pentagon on Friday released newly discovered payroll records from President Bush’s 1972 service in the Alabama National Guard, though the records shed no new light on the future president’s activities during that summer. A Pentagon official said the earlier contention that the records were destroyed was an “inadvertent oversight.” Like records released earlier by the White House, these computerized payroll records show no indication Bush drilled with the Alabama unit during July, August and September of 1972. Pay records covering all of 1972, released previously, also indicated no guard service for Bush during those three months.

Zach considers the deeper meanings of Schwarzenegger’s metaphors:

What’s bizarre is that the term “girlie men” originates not with Schwarzenegger himself, but with Dana Carvey and Kevin Nealon’s “Hans and Franz” Saturday Night Live skits in the late ’80s and early ’90s. Schwarzenegger’s political masculinist performance is nothing more than a bizarre caricature of his own filmic self-representation as sarcastically imagined by unflattering impersonators. And, lest we forget, “judgment day” in the Terminator Cycle was the date at which evil semisentient robots detonated massive nuclear strikes against humanity and destroyed civilization as we know it, except for Claire Danes. That’s either not a particularly useful metaphor for the democratic process, or it’s a profoundly telling comment about how republicans understand their relationship to the rights of working people.

David Moberg assesses the drastic toll of the Bush years on working people, and offers an optimistic take on what a Kerry administration could mean:

In contrast, Sen. John Kerry has promised to support and sign the Employee Free Choice Act. The act would require the NLRB to certify a union as bargaining agent if a majority of workers sign authorization cards, as well as to impose injunctions and fines if management attempts to prevent workers from joining a union, and to provide mediation and arbitration if bargaining does not promptly produce a first contract. Currently, 31 senators and 205 representatives are co-sponsors of the legislation, which is a top legislative priority for organized labor. In June unions collected and sent more than a million postcards supporting the legislation to Kerry and Bush. The act could provide an enormous boost to labor, especially since a growing number of unions are primed to expand their organizing efforts, and their success is crucial not just for the labor movement but progressive politics as a whole. “Giving workers the real, unfettered right to form their own unions will do more for rebuilding the labor movement and fueling progressive movements and legislation than almost any single other legislative act you could imagine,” Acuff says.

Despite some progressives’ reservations about Kerry, he has committed himself to a wide swath of labor’s agenda, such as reversing Bush’s tax cuts for those with incomes greater than $200,000, protecting Social Security and Medicare while expanding access to health insurance, raising the minimum wage, eliminating tax incentives to move jobs overseas, reviewing existing trade agreements, and incorporating labor and environmental protections in future agreements. But from organized labor’s perspective, the key contrast in the presidential race is that a second Bush administration is likely to further reduce workers’ right to organize, and Kerry has pledged to expand that right. And it’s a key contrast not only for unions, but for the future of any progressive politics.

Governor Jeb Bush responds to a court order mandating that Florida help felons complete the form to apply for executive clemency by eliminating the form entirely:

Now felons will have to wait for letters from state clemency officials telling them whether they need to apply. Some felons might get their rights automatically restored, but thousands will have to apply and wait for a hearing. Bush wants the Department of Corrections to rely on an electronic notice from the Department of Corrections that an appeals court said last week was insufficient. The decision drew criticism from some civil rights advocates. “What the governor has decided to do is thumb his nose at the decision of the 1st District Court of Appeal,” said Randall Berg, executive director of the Florida Justice Institute in Miami. “He’s thrown up this complete bureaucratic hurdle to continually disenfranchise prisoners in the state of Florida.” Bush spokesman Jacob DiPietre said the change is intended to streamline the process.

…critics say felons are often transient and it’s unlikely clemency officials will be able to reach them by mail for months or years after release. DiPietre said most felons do not have to have hearings; civil rights advocates say 85 percent must have hearings. A spokesman for the clemency office could not clarify the issue Thursday. “This will ensure that fewer people will know about the process or hear about the process,” said Howard Simon, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida. Between 400,000 and 700,000 felons in Florida haven’t had their voting rights restored…Civil rights advocates have called on Bush to change the clemency rules to automatically restore voting rights to felons after serving their sentences. Bush said such changes would require amending the state Constitution.

Given Florida used a constitutional ammendment last year to mandate building a monorail, I’d say it’s time for a constitutional ammendment to restore the civil rights of hundreds of thousands of Floridians.

Barry Goldwater (yes, that Barry Goldwater) once warned that the

frontal assault on the independence of the Federal courts is a dangerous blow to the foundations of a free society.

Unfortunately, the House of Representatives wasn’t listening:

The House approved a bill yesterday to strip the federal courts of jurisdiction over same-sex marriage cases, despite warnings by opponents that the measure is unconstitutional and would open the floodgates for efforts to prevent judges from ruling on other issues, from gun control to abortion. With strong backing from the Bush administration, the Marriage Protection Act was adopted 233 to 194. However, the bill is likely to face strong opposition in the Senate, where some Republicans joined with Democrats last week to block a proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.

As Congressman Jerrold Nadler observed yesterday:

Are state courts and adequate forum to protect federal constitutional rights? The majority does not think so when it’s the rights of big corporation, but when it comes to the rights of families and their children, that’s a different story.

Perhaps there are more effective ways to confront urban poverty and addiction among youth than this:

The Los Angeles Unified School District has decided to launch a review of the police program of sending undercover officers into high schools to buy drugs amid questions over whether the busts are fair and effective. The School Buy program, which is conducted by the Los Angeles Police Department on campuses across the city, caught 252 students selling drugs over the last year. Police officials declared the campaign a success, noting that it caught 105 more students than last year’s program.

But critics said success should not be measured by the number of students caught. They question whether the officers are actually targeting serious dealers. They also point to the rise in special-education students caught in recent years…Drug availability in Los Angeles schools has remained largely unchanged over the last seven years, according to a recent survey by the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Pennsylvania Congressman and Senate candidate Joe Hoeffel gains several points in my book for getting arrested in protest outside of the Sudanese embassy Wednesday. Today he explained why he did it:

Yesterday, my wife Francesca and I decided to engage in a small act of conscience by agreeing to be arrested in front of the Sudanese Embassy in Washington . You might think that’s an unusual thing for a Member of Congress to do. In fact, I was not the first Member of Congress to carry out this traditional form of civil disobedience in order to bring greater attention to the horrible ethnic violence and avoidable humanitarian catastrophe now taking place in that east African nation. I certainly hope I will not be the last.

Why now? The answer is simple. Refugee children are dying of disease and malnutrition. Women are being raped. Men are being murdered. The clock is ticking and every day that passes means the loss of more human life. Americans of all faiths do not want to stand by and simply let this kind of ethnic warfare and humanitarian crisis happen again. I came to the conclusion that simply passing resolutions and sending letters would not do enough to bring about the kind of quick action needed to save lives…In a systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing reminiscent of Rwanda a decade ago, the Sudanese government has supported and encouraged Arab militias in the slaughter of black Africans in the Darfur region of the country – killing and raping thousands of innocent black men, women, and children. Already more than 30,000 people have been slaughtered and more than a million others displaced. Entire villages are being destroyed and families are being torn apart. Sudan is witness to brutal crimes against humanity – hateful genocide, plain and simple. The longer the international community waits to react, the more terrible the human cost will be.

Morgan Stanley’s chief economist:

Consequently, from three different vantage points – employment breakdowns by industry, by occupation and by degree of attachment – the same basic picture emerges: While there has been an increase in job creation over the past four months – an unusually belated and anemic spurt by historical standards – the bulk of the activity has been at the low end of the quality spectrum. The Great American Job Machine is not even close to generating the surge of the high-powered jobs that is typically the driving force behind greater incomes and consumer demand.

This puts households under enormous pressure. Desperate to maintain lifestyles, they have turned to far riskier sources of support. Reliance on tax cuts has led to record budget deficits, and borrowing against homes has led to record household debt. These trends are dangerous and unsustainable, and they pose a serious risk to economic recovery.

The Human Rights Campaign caves to the Republican noise machine and shafts the “Notorious C.H.O.”:

Margaret Cho has been “uninvited” to perform at the Unity 2004 event which is taking place at Avalon, this coming Monday, July 26, around the Democratic National Convention. The Human Rights Campaign is one of 10 GLBT groups coming together July 26 at the nightclub to “celebrate GLBT strength and unity.”Asked to headline the event, Cho was preparing to preview material from her new State of Emergency tour, as part of an unpaid benefit performance. She has since been “uninvited” by a spokesman for the HRC, who cited “a potential media firestorm,” and referenced the recent criticism of Whoopi Goldberg’s routine at a Kerry fundraiser. Unity 2004 is not officially a part of the Democratic National Convention or the Kerry campaign. Not all of the groups involved in Unity 2004 agreed with the decision to rescind the invitation.

“I am not surprised at the reversal in light of how the Kerry campaign distanced itself from Whoopi’s routine in response to the unrelenting media hype and Republican criticism,” said Margaret’s manager, Karen Taussig. “It’s Whoopi’s job as a comedian to say things that are sometimes shocking. I wish they could have backed her up. Dennis Miller can make gay jokes about Senators Kerry and Edwards at a recent Bush rally in Wisconsin to a complete absence of media scrutiny. No one demanded a tape of that event or alleged that his comments as a comedian might reflect poorly on Bush.”

The Army’s Inspector General reports 94 cases of prisoner abuse:

The number is significantly higher than all other previous estimates given by the Pentagon, which had refused until now to give a total number of abuse allegations. The inspector general investigation, ordered Feb. 10 after the allegations of abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq came to the attention of top Army officials in Washington, concluded that there were no systemic problems that contributed to the abuse. In some cases, the report found, the abuse was abetted or facilitated by officers not following proper procedures. Most of the alleged abuses — 45 of the 94 — happened at the point where the detainee was captured, said Lt. Gen. Paul Mikolashek, the Army’s inspector general. Of those 45 cases, 20 involved allegations of physical abuse and the rest were allegations of theft or other crimes, he said. Twenty-one cases of alleged abuse happened at detention centers such as Abu Ghraib, Mikolashek said. Another 19 happened at collection points where prisoners are gathered between their capture and their transfer to long-term prisons. Only eight cases happened during or surrounding interrogations, Mikolashek said. In contrast to its own findings that there were no systemic problems, however, the Army report also cites a February report from the International Committee for the Red Cross that alleged that “methods of ill treatment” were “used in a systematic way” by the U.S. military in Iraq.

A Sunday comics consortium drops Doonesbury for being “controversial”:

A poll that resulted in a vote to drop “Doonesbury” was defended by the head of a Sunday-comics consortium.”It was not a political statement of any kind,” Continental Features President Van Wilkerson told E&P. “I personally don’t have an opinion about ‘Doonesbury’ one way or another.”Wilkerson said he conducted the survey because Garry Trudeau’s comic “created more controversy than other strips.” In the poll e-mail he sent Continental’s newspaper clients this spring, Wilkerson wrote: “(I)t is my feeling that a change in one of the features is required. I have fielded numerous complaints about ‘Doonesbury’ in the past and feel it is time to drop this feature and add another in its place. … If the majority of the group favors a replacement, you will be expected to accept that change.”Of the 38 papers that run the Continental-produced Sunday comics section, 21 wanted to drop “Doonesbury,” 15 wanted to keep it, and two had no opinion or preference. “I wouldn’t call the vote [to drop ‘Doonesbury’] overwhelming, but it was a majority opinion,” Wilkerson said.

As Alyssa says, this is ridiculous. What should be dropped is the Bush Doctrine, not criticism of its consequences.