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Honoring a request from Reddit, Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield performed his own version of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” on his last day onboard the International Space Station. The results are awesome:
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Let me get this straight. Chris Matthews has lost the thrill up the leg and now Piers Morgan concedes that governments can, in fact, turn on their own people?

Morgan: I’ve had some of the pro-gun lobbyists on here, saying to me, ‘Well, the reason we need to be armed is because of tyranny from our own government,’ and I’ve always laughed at them. But, actually, this is vaguely tyrannical behavior by the American government.

“What part of the presidency does Obama like? He doesn’t like dealing with other politicians — that means his own cabinet, that means members of the congress, either party. He doesn’t particularly like the press…. He likes to write the speeches, likes to rewrite what Favreau and the others wrote for the first draft,” – Chris Matthews

It was April 4, 1964, and Jerry Lee Lewis had officially bottomed out. He hadn’t charted a record in years, and now, on tour in England and Germany, he was getting paid so little that he couldn’t afford to bring his own musicians. Instead, he was forced to use pickup bands in England, and then, when he arrived in Hamburg, a British band called the Nashville Teens was waiting for him. The venue was the Star Club, where The Beatles, who had just leaped into stardom in America, had played not long before. A producer for Philips Records Germany, Siggi Loch, decided that this would be a good chance to record Jerry Lee Lewis’ show.

Live at the Hamburg Star-Club, is 37 minutes long and, because it features a man playing as if his life depended on it in front of a rioting crowd, is widely considered one of the greatest live rock ‘n’ roll albums ever.  (scroll down to hear it)

He opened up with “Down the Line,” and the engineer wasn’t ready, so the first few lines Lewis sang were lost. The audience, though, erupted as their hero hit the stage. He then proceeded to cut loose with a set that was mostly oldies — including, of course, some of his own… Click here to hear the full story from NPR. *I put together a playlist so you can hear the album:

LIVE AT 1:00 pm ET. Eric Holder on DOJ Oversight, AP Phone Records.

http://www.c-span.org/Live-Video/C-SPAN3/

A collection of media reports…

Document: IRS ordered conservative educational  group to turn over a list of high school and college students it trained

• Federal government demanded a list of  everyone a Tennessee organization had ever trained, or planned to  train
• Linchpins of Liberty mentors high school and  college students  and teaches them conservative political philosophy, but is not  tea-party-linked
• ‘Can you imagine my responsibility to  parents if I disclosed the names of their children to the IRS?’ asked the  group’s founder
• IRS Inspector General report listed seven  questions the agency should never have asked, but this wasn’t one of  them

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2324716/Document-IRS-ordered-conservative-educational-group-turn-list-high-school-college-students-trained.html#ixzz2TMdymOYJ

The Internal Revenue Service asked tea party groups to see donor rolls. It asked for printouts of Facebook posts. And it asked what books people were reading. A POLITICO review of documents from 11 tea party and conservative groups that  the IRS scrutinized in 2012 shows the agency wanted to know everything — in some  cases, it even seemed curious what members were thinking. The review included  interviews with groups or their representatives from Hawaii, New Mexico, Ohio,  Texas and elsewhere.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/05/the-irs-wants-you-to-share-everything-91378.html#ixzz2TMesFdZT

“[This president] has prosecuted more people for leaks than every other president put together…”

Franklin Graham: IRS targeted us, too… The IRS came after Billy Graham, too, his son charged Tuesday in a letter to President Barack Obama…
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/05/franklin-graham-irs-targeting-91362.html#ixzz2TMfadU7g

CARNEY: Just because IRS apologized doesn’t mean it did anything wrong…

Are the FBI and IRS Secretly Reading Your Email Without a Warrant?

BACKGROUND ON THE STORY: The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative’s top executive called a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into how news organizations gather the news.

The records obtained by the Justice Department listed outgoing calls for the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters, for general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and for the main number for the AP in the House of Representatives press gallery, according to attorneys for the AP. It was not clear if the records also included incoming calls or the duration of the calls.

In all, the government seized the records for more than 20 separate telephone lines assigned to AP and its journalists in April and May of 2012. The exact number of journalists who used the phone lines during that period is unknown, but more than 100 journalists work in the offices where phone records were targeted, on a wide array of stories about government and other matters. (via AP)

Here’s the drone connection from emptywheel:

…it means the government grabbed phone records for Adam Goldman,  Matt Apuzzo, Kimberly Dozier, Eileen Sullivan, and Alan Fram for three weeks after (and five weeks before) the UndieBomb 2.0 story Goldman and Apuzzo by-lined.

That would mean they’d get the sources for this Kimberly Dozier story published May 21 which starts,

“White House counterterror chief John Brennan has seized the lead in guiding the debate on which terror leaders will be targeted for drone attacks or raids, establishing a new procedure to vet both military and CIA targets.

The move concentrates power over the use of lethal U.S. force outside war zones at the White House. Continue Reading →