From Feministe's Jill Filipovic:

If this story doesn’t disgust you, I don’t know what will:

It was a nightmare captured on surveillance video. A woman who had waited nearly 24 hours to be seen in a Brooklyn public hospital collapsed, fell face-down on the floor, convulsed and for nearly an hour — while several hospital staff members looked at her and one staff member even prodded her with her foot — received no aid. At some point during that time, she died.

The New York Civil Liberties Union has been sounding the alarm about New York City hospitals for some time now, calling the emergency room and inpatient units at Kings County Hospital “a chamber of filth, decay, indifference and danger.” It’s disgusting that someone had to die before the city bothered doing anything about it.

And this is just the one that we know about because the video was released on YouTube. The callous disregard that the hospital employees showed to Esmin Green is not possibly a one-time occurrence. Ms. Green was a poor, mentally ill woman of color. She apparently didn’t matter one bit to the employees at the hospital who were supposed to be giving her care. I would bet everything I own that she is not the first “unimportant” patient to receive that kind of treatment — she is just the first to have her death broadcast on YouTube, and so she is the first that the city cannot turn a blind eye towards.

What should you know about Zimbabwe?

Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen said he can't send more troops into Afghanistan UNTIL he has made further troop reductions in Iraq.  Why then does the Bush administration continue to focus our military efforts on Iraq? 

Not only was June the deadliest month in Afghanistan for our troops, but it was the second straight month that the death toll was higher there than in Iraq.

More at therealnews.com

Hersh: VP Cheney believes he is going to save the world...by attacking Iran.  See part 2 of this interview here.

From C&L's SilentPatriot:

In order to determine whether or not “water boarding” is indeed torture, Vanity Fair’s Christopher Hitchens decided to do the most logical thing: experience it first hand.

“If waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture.”

Vanity Fair:

Arms already lost to me, I wasn’t able to flail as I was pushed onto a sloping board and positioned with my head lower than my heart. (That’s the main point: the angle can be slight or steep.) Then my legs were lashed together so that the board and I were one single and trussed unit. Not to bore you with my phobias, but if I don’t have at least two pillows I wake up with acid reflux and mild sleep apnea, so even a merely supine position makes me uneasy. And, to tell you something I had been keeping from myself as well as from my new experimental friends, I do have a fear of drowning that comes from a bad childhood moment on the Isle of Wight, when I got out of my depth. As a boy reading the climactic torture scene of 1984, where what is in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world, I realize that somewhere in my version of that hideous chamber comes the moment when the wave washes over me. Not that that makes me special: I don’t know anyone who likes the idea of drowning. As mammals we may have originated in the ocean, but water has many ways of reminding us that when we are in it we are out of our element. In brief, when it comes to breathing, give me good old air every time.

Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks debates Ben Ferguson and comes to the defense of General Wesley Clark's comments in regards to John McCain's war experience not automatically making him qualified to be Commander in Chief. To see more of Cenk, go to www.theyoungturks.com.

I believe there was a second part to this segment, however, my local cable station happened to cut in for some inconsiderate reason.

The Muppets take on the Constitutional Convention in a 1982 special created by Norman Lear for the People for the American Way.

Your Daily Politics Video Blog: Did John McCain say he didn't know much about economics or not? In today's episode of TPMtv, we go to the tape.

This hilarious video was part of The Colbert Report's Green Screen Challenge: Make McCain Interesting.  The Vogue Edition was created by Wayne Simbro.

Unless Americans turn to alternative sources of entertainment, the 'Hannah Montana' star will soon be completely tapped out.

Did that headline grab your attention?  It's exactly the kind of slimy trick FOX News played when anchor E.D. Hill began her show America's Pulse with the teaser: "A fist bump? A pound? A terrorist fist jab? The gesture everyone seems to interpret differently." 

Well, by FOX's own insane equation (fist bump + slanderous spin = terrorist threat), Sen. Joe Lieberman is a terrorist.  After all, Lieberman can be seen in this video giving a fist bump to someone at what looks to be a golf game, judging by Lieberman's polo shirt and khaki pants. 

Do we really believe that Joe Lieberman is a terrorist?  Of course not!  But if we were loyal FOX News viewers (perish the thought), we would have come away from Hill's show thinking that Obama was a terrorist over the innocent hand gesture he gave his wife upon clinching the Democratic nomination.  And then we would believe that Lieberman, along with all of the people seen here in Media Matters' gallery of fist bumps, were terrorists as well.

JoeFelice has a created a fantastic way of using YouTube to amplify his message about voter registration.  In Joe's Voter Vlog Project, he registers someone to vote, then makes a video in which he "tags" other YouTube users, calling them out to do the same.

CitizenTube has more on some of those who have already responded to Joe's challenge.

While offshore drilling has drawn national attention, less has been made of oil and gas drilling on public land within the continental United States. This despite figures showing the amount of oil and gas drilling on public land has reached a new high. The Wilderness Society recently reported more than forty-four million acres of public lands are leased for oil and gas development.

Last summer I got a call from someone who had seen some of our past work. She started off being extremely complimentary about the issues we were bringing to light, marveling at how widely we were able to distribute our short videos to not only inform, but to motivate viewers to take action. She then asked if Brave New Foundation would be interested in taking on a large project to help amplify the stories of a group of Americans whose efforts and sacrifices weren't being acknowledged. She warned me that it would be a difficult task since it only directly affected less than 1% of the US population.

Being a bit headstrong (even in my middle age), I said that no task was too difficult. If there is an injustice, we could tackle it and help to make it right! But what she wanted was difficult. The task we took on was to tell the stories of servicemembers who have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Over the past several months, as we gathered our staff and began to meet the men and women who have served, we knew that it would be a privilege to be able to share the stories of these servicemembers and their families so that the other 99% of the US population can better understand what is happening to our troops when they return from war.

We wanted to do something different than our usual short videos with this project, so we developed an idea for a LIVE internet-based show and decided to call it In Their Boots to let the audience know they would be hearing the information from the servicemembers' points of view.

The show premieres today, Wednesday July 2nd, at 4pm Pacific/5 Mountain/6 Central/7 Eastern at www.intheirboots.com. The stories are riveting and the show will be broadcast LIVE. You will have the opportunity to hear the stories from these servicemembers, learn about organizations that are helping, and find out how you can help as well.

The show will be broadcast from our brand new studio (it was a beauty parlor just 2 months ago), not quite finished since we are still doing some fundraising, but looking pretty good. Since it is LIVE, we invite you all to join the discussion and become part of webcast history by asking our interview guest a question, live, "on the air."

We are proud of what we have put together and we hope that you all tune in to see this. Please let us know what you think of it as well. And if you miss any part of the episode, be sure to check it out on our site: www.intheirboots.com. We plan on producing a new episode every Wednesday, live at 4pm Pacific.

A couple of days ago, I wrote about how appalling it was for President Bush to credit himself, John McCain, and Lindsey Graham for the GI Bill, considering how they did everything they could to block its passage.  Well, Jim Webb shared that sentiment on Countdown with Keith Olbermann. 

Webb laughed, "I think it’s safe to say there was a good deal of cooperation between Republicans and Democrats.  It just didn’t include the administration.”  He then added that Bush, who didn't even thank Sen. Chuck Hagel as one of the GI Bill's actual proponents, "made a real bad mistake in terms of our trying to show full respect for military service.  I think he blew it."

Watch more at www.theyoungturks.com

***MINOR SPOILER ALERT***

www.illdoctrine.com

Uncovering the secret code hidden inside the year's best movie. Now, I don't expect this type of movie (or any movie) to cover every sociopolitical issue comprehensively—but I did find it interesting how it approached environmental issues in a way that basically left class and race off the table. Race and class are so often left off the table when the environment is discussed.

Hersh: Congress Agreed to Bush Request to Fund Major Escalation in Secret Operations Against Iran

Congressional leaders agreed to a request from President Bush last year to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran aimed at destabilizing Iran's leadership, according to a new article by veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker magazine. The operations were set out in a highly classified Presidential Finding signed by Bush which, by law, must be made known to Democratic and Republican leaders. The plan allowed up to $400 million in covert spending for activities ranging from supporting dissident groups to spying on Iran's nuclear program. Hersh joins us from Washington DC.

See part 2 of this interview here.

In the run up to the 4th of July, here's a tribute to what it means to be patriotic.