CBS News reports: “The Senate Judiciary Committee will suspend Solicitor General Elena Kagan’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Thursday while the late-Sen. Robert Byrd lies in state at the Capitol.” Byrd famously made a habit of carrying a copy of the U.S. Constitution in his shirt pocket. In 2004,…

While Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan has been extensively questioned in her hearings about her tenure as dean of Harvard Law School regarding military recruiters on campus, her role in a controversy involving charges of plagiarism against Harvard Law School Professor Alan Dershowitz (as well as other plagiarism scandals which erupted while she was head…

Confirmation hearings for Gen. David Petraeus as top military commander in Afghanistan are being held today. GARETH PORTER Porter just wrote “Why Petraeus Won’t Salvage This War” for Foreign Policy. The piece states: “As Gen. David Petraeus prepares for his next command, his supporters are hoping he can rescue a failing war for the second…

One year ago today, Manuel Zelaya was overthrown as president of Honduras. A general strike and other activities are expected today. ADRIENNE PINE Assistant professor of anthropology at American University and author of Working Hard, Drinking Hard: On Violence and Survival in Honduras, Pine has been in Honduras for the last month. She just wrote…

FRANCIS BOYLE Professor of law at the University of Illinois, Boyle is author of Tackling America’s Toughest Questions. The Los Angles Times on Sunday wrote that Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan’s “most audacious move [while Dean at Harvard Law School] was to recruit Jack Goldsmith, a lawyer who had served in the George W. Bush…

Leaders of the G8/G20, including President Obama, are meeting in Toronto beginning Friday. CLAYTON THOMAS-MULLER DALLAS GOLDTOOTH Currently in Toronto, Thomas-Muller is Tar Sands Campaigner for the Indigenous Environmental Network. He said today: “The G20 is continuing down a road of business as usual for big oil. The Tar Sands in Alberta, Canada is an…

NORMAN SOLOMON Solomon today wrote the piece “From Great Man to Great Screwup: Behind the McChrystal Uproar,” which states: “But the most profound aspects of Rolling Stone’s article ‘The Runaway General’ have little to do with the general. The takeaway is — or should be — that the U.S. war in Afghanistan is an insoluble…

BARBARA KENNELLY, PAMELA TAINTER CAUSEY Kennelly is president of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security; Causey is communications director for the group, which has written several pieces that critique the Peterson Foundation including “Ahhh … the Good Old Days … Debtor’s Prisons and No Entitlements” and “The Campaign Against Social Security.” See: http://www.ncpssm.org/entitledtoknow/?tag=pete-peterson DEAN…

Reuters is reporting: “Nothing short of the full lifting of Israel’s blockade on Gaza would allow the territory to be rebuilt, the UN agency responsible for Palestinian refugees said on Monday, a day after Israel said it would ease its siege. … “‘We need to have the blockade fully lifted,’ said spokesman Christopher Gunness of…

The British Guardian reports: “The whistleblowing website WikiLeaks says it plans to release a secret military video of one of the deadliest U.S. air strikes in Afghanistan in which scores of children are believed to have been killed.” In April, Wikileaks released the “Collateral Murder” video showing U.S. soldiers in Iraq killing civilians including a…