Midday open thread

• Daily Kos radio launched this weekend! Catch Armando and David Waldman (Kagro X) on Sirius/XM channel 127, Saturdays at 10 AM ET. If you are not a subscriber, you can get a free web trial here.
• Staying neutral on mindless bigotry:

  Gov. Rick Snyder?s spokesperson says the governor has no opinion yet on Dave Agema?s bill to ban ?foreign law? from being considered by courts in Michigan because his office hasn?t yet analyzed the bill.

• Probably more like the second week in September:

  Rudy Giuliani is still considering a presidential bid and said on CNN's "Piers Morgan Tonight" he will make a decision by the end of September.

• Stranger than fiction:

  No joke: Presidential candidate Rick Perry and comedian Stephen Colbert, who last week barraged Iowa voters with advertisements urging voters to support ?Rick Parry,? shared the same political committee treasurer ? until they didn?t.

  Salvatore Purpura, who has represented numerous political committees as treasurer over the years, told POLITICO that he resigned on Thursday as treasurer of Colbert?s super PAC, Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow.

  Then, on Monday, Perry - not Parry - formally filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission listing Purpura has his campaign treasurer.

  ?Obviously, there was a potential conflict of interest,? Purpura said. ?I told [Colbert lawyer] Trevor [Potter] on Thursday I would not be able to be treasurer anymore.?
  

• Frightening:

  The Army doesn?t know whether 5 million pieces of body armor meet its safety standards, a Defense Department inspector general?s report says, according to The Associated Press.

  The Pentagon awarded seven contracts, valued at a total of $2.5 billion, for the body armor known as ballistic inserts between 2004 and 2006, the AP reported. The Pentagon report found safety tests were conducted with the wrong plates or were inconsistent, with some tests for temperature and altitude being abandoned. Two body armor designs were approved without any valid test, the report said.

  ?Consequently, the Army cannot be sure that ballistic inserts meet ? requirements,? the report said, according to the AP. ?As a result, the Army lacks assurance that 5.1 million ballistic inserts acquired through the seven contracts provide appropriate protection.?
  

• Do you suffer from decision fatigue?
• Joe Lieberman, with us on everything except the war everything:

  HANNITY: I worry about the President. I didn?t feel he treated the prime minister [of Israel] correctly, when he came to town the first time. I didn?t like when he sprung on him, they got to go back to ?67 borders. I wanted to get your thoughts.

  LIEBERMAN: I agree with you. I think the President is not anti-Israel. I think he?s pro-Israel but I think he?s handled the relationship with Israel in a way that has encouraged Israel?s enemies and really unsettled the Israelis.

• And they have charts to prove it:

  Just 2 companies produce 80% of all the beer consumed in the US. And most of them suck!

• Please Join the Foes of the Tar Sands Pipeline: Blogathon & DC Civil Disobedience Action this week at Daily Kos to try to stop this Canadian pipeline that will cause harmful if not deadly impacts to our health, economy, environmental resources and wildlife while TransCanada satisfies its greed.

  If "tar sands are thrown into the mix, it is essentially game over," says Dr. James Hansen, director of NASA?s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

Source: http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/W0syUn5uNHI/-Midday-open-thread

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