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These two sisters, age 24 and 27, are victims. Keep that in mind. Love Infinitely has the details:

At the neighborhood park where the girls had just come from their walk, two groups of men had gotten into an argument on the basketball court. One group decided to leave the argument and headed toward their car. Once in their car, the other group went after them on foot and drew a gun. The men tried to drive away when shots were fired.

While trying to get away, the driver of that vehicle was shot in the head and his car skidded out of control and created a chain reaction of events. The vehicle hit 2 parked cars, one of them belonging to the Hermosillo’s cousin who had her 3 year old baby in the car seat . The car also hit an elderly gentleman who was out for an evening walk and then hit a fire hydrant before the car with the baby in it, slammed into a tree. The fire hydrant, as it went flying, hit Vanessa and Yoanna.

Yoanna suffered several broken limbs but it was pregnant Vanessa who was the most severely injured as the fire hydrant actually landed on her. She was revived by paramedics at the scene as her heart had stopped beating. Her pelvis was broken, ribs crushed, sternum cracked and broken limbs. And most unfortunate, the loss of her baby. The two girls were rushed to the hospital as was the elderly man and the young man who was shot in the head.

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Thank you for letting me part of your morning. I'm looking forward to sharing links with you again.

Plutocrap reminds us of a world gone by.

Juanita Jean's Dangerous Beauty Salon wants South Carolina to give the trophy back to Arizona.

Darkblack reminds us that what is old is sometimes old and not new again.

Bonus Track: The Reaction speculates about the endorsement conversation between Dubya and Mitt.

Round-up by Tengrain of Mock, Paper, Scissors who also blogs at Dependable Renegade. Send tips to: mbru@crooksandliars.com

Jeremy Rivkin and the evolution of empathy

Ah...empathy. I think a highly developed sense of empathy is what defines us as liberals. I do not need to be a minority, or on food stamps or elderly to empathize with the struggles they have. I can empathize with all sorts of people. But there appears to be an empathy gene missing from Republicans. Rather than imagining and empathizing with those who aren't as fortunate as they, Republicans treat them with suspicion and worse, contempt. How else can you explain their policies? Would that we could be the ones to ask questions of these guys. How I'd love to ask Paul Ryan of the real consequences of his budget plan. Is he prepared to let so many people suffer in the richest country in the world? Or Mitch McConnell, how does he feel about hurting so many children? Or John Boehner? Where in the world is their empathy?

ABC's "This Week" — Budget, debt ceiling: Reps. John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. Roundtable: George Will, Donna Brazile, Matthew Dowd, Gavin Newsom.

NBC's "Meet the Press" — Economy, elections 2012: Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis. Roundtable: Mayor of Newark, NJ, Cory Booker (D), Republican strategist Mike Murphy, CNBC's Jim Cramer, and the Wall Street Journal's Kim Strassel

NBC's "The Chris Matthews Show" - Panel: Clarence Page, Chicago Tribune; Kathleen Parker, Washington Post; Liz Marlantes, Christian Science Monitor; John Heilemann, New York magazine. Topics: Jeremiah Wright returns -- will negative ads dominate 2012? America's Non-White Majority in the context of our American Tradition

MSNBC's "Up with Chris Hayes" - Panelists: MSNBC Policy Analyst Ezra Klein; Former Obama Labor Dept. Chief Economist Betsey Stevenson; Former Federal Home Loan Bank Board Litigation Director Bill Black; Karl Smith, Asst. Prof. of Economics and Government at UNC-Chapel Hill. Topics include: The 2012 presidential-race battles over debt and Bain’s effect on jobs; A look at how much America has at stake in the Euro Zone crisis; This weekend’s G-8 talks.

MSNBC's "Melissa Harris-Perry" - Panelists: Glen Johnson, Politics Editor of Boston.com; Salamishah Tillet, Assistant Professor of English and Africana Studies at Univ. of Pennsylvania; Dafna Linzer, Senior Reporter for ProPublica; Kayla Williams, Author of “Love My Rifle More Than You: Young and Female in the U.S. Army” and a fellow at the Truman National Security Project; Julie Zeilinger, Founder of the The FBomb, a feminist blog for teenagers and author of “A Little F’d Up: Why Feminism Is Not A Dirty Word”, former Senator Bill Bradley (D-NJ), author of “We Can All Do Better”. Topics include: Year of the young woman; Women in combat; Clemency for Clarence Aaron; Bill Bradley’s new book

CBS' "Face the Nation" — Debt ceiling battle: Sens. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Mark Warner, D-Va. Afghanistan: Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. and Tom Friedman. Syria: CBS news correspondent Clarissa Ward. Roundtable: Chief White House correspondent Norah O'Donnell and Political Director John Dickerson.

CNN's "State of the Union" — Budget and debt ceiling battle: Sens. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas; Presidential election: David Axelrod, adviser to President Barack Obama's re-election campaign; Reince Priebus, Republican National Committee chairman; Upcoming NATO meeting in Chicago: Anders Fogh Rasmussen, NATO Secretary-General. Roundtable: Jeff Zeleny of the New York Times and CNN Senior Congressional Correspondent Dana Bash.

CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" - European economy crisis, upcoming G8 summit: Italy's Prime Minister Mario Monti

CNN's "Reliable Sources with Howard Kurtz" - Campaign ads: National Review senior editor Ramesh Ponnuru, Newsweek/Daily Beast columnist and CNN contributor John Avlon, and RealClearPolitics’ Erin McPike. Facebook IPO: PandoDaily.com’s Sarah Lacy. USA Today new online editor: Larry Kramer. Former Daily Show producer: Mike Rubens.

"Fox News Sunday" — Ryan; former White House economic adviser Austan Goolsbee. Roundtable: Bill Kristol, Weekly Standard; Joe Trippi; Karl Rove; Evan Bayh

So what's catching your eye this morning?

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Happy Saturday night, folks! It's Blue Gal from The Professional Left Podcast, bringing you this week's podcast round up. Be aware that these podcasts are also available on i-Tunes, and may not be safe for work.

Tomcast from Tom Dispatch: Barbara Ehrenreich, author of the acclaimed Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, talks about her latest project to fund investigative journalism focused on poverty in the United States and the financial reality of being part of our nation's working poor.

The Dinner Party: Satirist Christopher Buckley on international (etiquette) relations.

Lee Camp (video): 15 Crucial Facts Never Heard on the Mainstream Media.

Open Thread below....

Ok folks, comin to you live(kinda) from WC&L. The new Bonnie Raitt. First release in 7 years. And our own Mike Finnigan (formerly of Mike's Blog Round Up) backing up on the Hammond Organ. Tell us what you think, and add to this. Lets see what you got folks. On the slide.

Slipstream, Bonnie Raitt
	Artist: Bonnie Raitt Price: $8.75 (As of 05/20/12 05:46 am details)

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Credit: Acme

1936 Democratic Convention - some things are destined never to change. Ballyhoo is one of them.

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On this evening there were seconding speeches, and pleas from the Chairman to keep the hyperbole down to five minutes apiece. On this evening too, there was sufficient boredom going on in the broadcast studio that such journalistic greats as H.V. Kaltenborn and Edward R. Murrow were reduced to interviewing delegates to find out which was the youngest at the convention - and in Murrow's case, interviewing the on-site barber to get the "scoop" on "just what goes on in a barber shop during a convention". Pretty weighty stuff, but no less strange than the endless trivia and human interest stories we deal with now.

So here is the last hour of the convention day for June 26th 1936, the seconding speeches, as presented by CBS Radio, hosted by Robert Trout.

Occupy Wall Street protester, Jessica Hall, was arrested by the NYPD last November 17th and faced the same charges as Alexander Arbuckle, who was acquitted on Tuesday in the first Occupy arrest case to go to trial.

Again, just as in Arbuckle's case, Hall was acquitted after the NYPD's own surveillance video showed that police lied were mistaken in their testimony.

Via:

On the stand, Hall's arresting officer, Sgt. Michael Soldo, said he arrested her because she was blocking traffic. But as Soldo admitted under cross-examination, and as the NYPD's own video documentation confirmed, it was actually the NYPD metal barricades running all the way across William Street that was preventing vehicles from passing.

At the time of her arrest, Hall was about a foot away from the police barricades.

After Soldo's testimony, Hall's lawyers, Marty Stolar and Elena Cohen, moved to dismiss. Judge Matthew Sciarrino agreed that the prosecution hadn't made its case.

"The police arrested people willy-nilly without any determination that they had actually committed the offenses that they were charged with," Stolar told the Voice afterwards. "That's what tends to criminalize protest activity."

Much like the Blackwater private security contractors, the police have "qualified immunity," making it unlikely that they'll face any consequences for lying misrepresenting the facts regardless of how many of these arrests come to trial and clear the protesters of any legal violations.

I keep mulling this over, and I can't think of any way even Republican judges can make this constitutional. But it's mindboggling that they would even try to give the legislative branch the power to decide whether a state AG is permitted to bring a prosecution without the approval of the politicians. Imagine if it was illegal for the state AGs to go after bank fraud without the permission of the politicians they've bought! They already own almost everything, I guess this is their way of trying to snatch that final crumb:

A year ago, even a divining rod would have been tempting to a reporter trying to tease out details about the workings of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). The group’s corporate, ideological and lawmaker members wouldn’t admit to an association, much less describe the model bills cooked up at its cushy confabs.

Today, it’s like shooting fish in a barrel. One need only pick up one of the 4,000 documents recently obtained by Common Cause, which has filed complaints against the group here and at the national level, and out tumble nuggets of political chicanery.

Exhibit A: The agenda from last week’s ALEC meeting in Charlotte, N.C., where its task forces polished proposed bills that are likely to pop up in the next legislative session here and around the country.At the meeting, ALEC’s Civil Justice Task Force considered a proposal entitled the ALEC Attorney General Authority Act. The boilerplate is pretty impenetrable -- one more reason lawmakers don’t write these themselves -- but the summary attached for members’ advance consideration lays out the gist pretty neatly:

“Just as a private attorney cannot bring a suit on behalf of a client without the client agreeing and authorizing such action, and then only within the guidelines allowed by the client, so it should be with the attorney general. Rather than an attorney general deciding on his or her own what authority the office may have to bring a lawsuit, the authority should be defined by the state as reflected by the specific decisions of the legislature via statute. The legislature, not the attorney general, is best positioned to balance the competing concerns that go into the decision of whether to allow a cause of action and under what circumstances.”

In even plainer English: AGs, who are typically the consumer’s lone public advocate these days, may not file suit against, say, a tobacco company, a mortgage fraudster or a national company flaunting state law, unless the legislature passes a bill saying he -- or in our case, she -- can.

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After Mitt Romney went pandering to the right-wing during his commencement address at Liberty University earlier this week, Bill Maher took his a few shots at the school during his New Rules segment on Real Time this Friday.

MAHER: And finally, new rule, you can't expect me to believe anything Mitt Romney said last week at Liberty University because a: He's a liar. And b: Liberty University isn't really a university. It's not like an actual statesman visited an actual college. It's more like a Tupac hologram visited Disneyland. [...]

This is a school you flunk out of when you get the answers right. [...]

Conservatives often say that gay marriage cheapens their marriage. Well, I think a diploma from Liberty cheapens my degree from a real school.

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Open thread below.