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CNN's Ali Velshi will be hosting a new business show on Al Jazeera America this summer. Here's to hoping we've seen the last of interviews like this one from his final show, where regular Stephen Moore from the Wall Street Journal was there to dumb down the conversation as usual.

Ali Velshi Joining Al Jazeera America As Host:

Ali Velshi is getting a primetime business program on Al Jazeera America, the network announced on Thursday.

"The as yet-to-be named 30-minute magazine-style program will initially launch in a weekly format but is expected to move to a five-days-a-week schedule by year’s end," the network said in a statement.

The host's last day at CNN will be Friday. News of his departure broke on Wednesday. At the time, he said that he was leaving to pursue a project "he couldn’t pass up."

Velshi said in a statement that he was "thrilled" to join Al Jazeera America. “It’s a tremendous opportunity and I look forward to taking advantage of the extraordinary U.S. news-gathering capabilities the channel is building and working with such a diverse and talented group of colleagues to tell compelling stories that matter to Americans," he said.

As they noted, Al Jazeera America is going to replace Current TV's programming soon and they're still hiring staff and searching for on air talent. I haven't read anything yet about whether they're going to keep any of Current's lineup or not. I'd be happy if we find out that Cenk Uygur and John Fugelsang will continue to be employed by the network once they make the change.

I'll be very curious to see how Velshi's show differs when he's no longer working for CNN and if he's got some better guests than those who regularly appeared on his weekend show, Your Money, like Moore, who his network decided to inflict on the public just about every single stinking weekend.

And naturally every wingnut blog that posted anything about this has their comments section full of hate filled posts attacking Velshi for the move. I'm sure we haven't seen anything yet compared to the vitriol we'll be treated to once they actually bring the network on the air in America.

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The Daily Show's Jon Stewart took the talking heads over at Fox to task for their freakout over the sale of Al Gore's Current TV to Al Jazeera and making attacking the network as anti-American and associated with terrorists. As Stewart rightfully pointed out, heaven forbid anyone over at Fox would ever associate themselves with someone who owns a network that produces anything that would be considered anti-American... like Rupert Murdoch.

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The hosts of Fox & Friends on Friday slammed former Democratic Vice President Al Gore for being a "great American businessman" and selling his Current TV network to the "clearly anti-American" Al Jazeera network instead of former Fox News host Glenn Beck.

On Thursday, The Wall Street Journal reported that Gore had turned down an offer from Beck's The Blaze before deciding to accept $500 million to hand over Current TV to Al Jazeera.

Fox Business host Stuart Varney told the Fox & Friends hosts that Gore was guilty of "gross hypocrisy" for trying to sell his network before tax rates went up in 2013.

"Here's Al Gore -- extremely wealthy, ultra-leftist -- he's scrambling to book a profit on the sale of his TV network last year, when the tax rates are low," Varney opined. "That is hypocrisy."

Co-host Alisyn Camerota noted that Gore had been "desperately trying" to sell the network but the deal closed on Jan. 2 so it would be subject to the higher tax rates.

"You don't even have to say the word hypocrisy, you just have to say the statement," co-host Brian Kilmead quipped. "People at home use the word hypocrisy in their own kitchen, in their bathrobe with rollers in their hair."

But the detail that really seemed to outrage the Fox News personalities was that Gore shot down their former colleague, Glenn Beck, when he tried to buy Current TV.

"Glenn Beck wants to buy this TV network, so Al says, 'No, we're very sensitive to the network's not being aligned with our point of view,'" Varney explained. "In other words, 'Get lost, Glenn Beck,' but 'Okay, big oil, the sheikhdom of Qatar.'"

"Al Jazeera! That's their point of view?" Kilmeade exclaimed. "You can see more eye-to-eye with Al Jazeera than Glenn Beck -- Mr. Red, White and Blue?"

"May I move to the disgrace of this situation?" Varney continued. "This is the former Vice President of the United States of America, and he sells his news network to a clearly anti-American news channel called Al Jazeera. Are you kidding me?"

"That is just crazy," co-host Steve Doocy agreed. "But, you know what? Being a great American businessman, he was -- his first instinct, like Brian pointed out -- he was trying to save as much money as he could. We don't like the tax policy that he likes, but that was his inclination."

During a second Fox News segment later in the morning, guest Matt McCall said that Gore was now linked with terrorists because he was doing business with Al Jazeera.

"Remember after 9/11, al-Qaeda," McCall remarked. "That's who they gave the voice too, really? I mean, again, this is somebody who ran for president of the United States, he's trying to back the green, he's trying to back our country. At the same time, he's selling out to a country -- not saying Qatar's bad -- but they do have the support behind them of some of these terrorist groups and they let them get their voice across on their network."

"So, to me, he's now associating himself with al-Qaeda," he added. "And to me, that is actually disgusting what he is doing."

According to a 2005 report, a classified transcript indicated that then-President George W. Bush told then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair that he wanted to bomb Al Jazeera's headquarters in Qatar in 2004 because of the network's negative coverage of the Iraq war. The classified transcript came after the U.S. military fired a missile at offices the television network was using in Iraq in 2003. At the time, officials said that they believed the building was being used by al-Qaeda.

After launching Current TV in 2004, Fox News owner News Corporation -- and CEO Rupert Murdoch -- agreed to pay the network lucrative licensing fees and distribute it to 20 million homes through its DirectTV broadcast satellite service provider.

(h/t: Mediaite)

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You've just got to love the right wing propagandists over at Fox, like Bill O'Reilly, having the nerve to be screeching about Al Gore and his business partners' decision to sell Current TV to Al Jazeera. Here's more from Mediaite on Bill-O's rant during the opening of his show this Thursday evening: Bill O’Reilly Tears Into ‘Hypocrite’ Al Gore For Trying To Settle Current TV Sale Before Taxes Went Up:

Bill O’Reilly had some harsh words for Al Gore tonight over his sale of Current TV to Al Jazeera. O’Reilly took issue with Gore’s hypocrisy in trying to finalize the sale before the fiscal cliff deadline this past Monday night to avoid paying higher taxes, as well as doing a deal with “anti-Americans” at Al Jazeera. O’Reilly declared that Gore has “shamed himself” with the deal.

O’Reilly highlighted Gore’s hypocrisy on taxes by bringing up video of Gore saying two months ago that he believes rich people such as himself need to “do our fair share.”

O’Reilly then set his sights on Al Jazeera, a network he declared to be run by “anti-Americans” and even sympathetic to Osama bin Laden. By making a deal with Al Jazeera, O’Reilly said, Gore has “shamed himself.” O’Reilly made it clear he would not want Al Jazeera to be censored, but said the whole deal is “sleazy” and “disgraceful.”

I'm not going to defend Gore on the tax hypocrisy, if the anonymous sources O'Reilly quoted here, that it was Gore along with his business partners who were pushing to get this through before taxes went up this year are correct. But as the article noted, Gore owns 20 percent of the company, so it wasn't just him pushing for the time table if the source is accurate. And if the source is not accurate, as O'Reilly admitted is possible, Gore may very well have not been the one pushing for the deal to go through before the end of the year to avoid the higher tax rate.

Of course, O'Reilly's solution for this is for Gore to come on his show and explain himself, which we all know would be a completely "fair and balanced" and cordial interview... or maybe not. The likely outcome would be O'Reilly screaming over Gore and calling him every name in the book and accusing him of sympathizing with terrorists, just as he did here.

Which brings us to O'Reilly's attack of Al Jazeera as some anti-American propaganda outfit. I just have to say, that's pretty rich coming from someone from the right wing propaganda outfit, Fox, which has an ownership stake by Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal. I guess O'Reilly doesn't have any problems with Uncle Rupert palling around with someone from the country where 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9-11 were from.

And as to the quality of Al Jazeera's programming, from what I've watched of it, they've done a hell of a lot better job than Fox or many of their American counterparts with just delivering straight news from around the world. The reason people like O'Reilly hate them is for the real reporting they were attempting to do when the United States decided to invade Iraq under false pretenses and reporters from that network along with others paid the price for that with their lives.

Fox and O'Reilly were too busy playing cheerleader for the Bush administration at the time instead of telling Americans the truth about what we were doing there.

There are legitimate concerns to be had about foreign ownership of our news media here in the United States, but I think they pale in comparison to the problem we have with media consolidation, which is far more dangerous. The quality and honesty of what's presented to the American public matters and having five or so huge media companies controlling everything we watch, read, listen to and the mixture of entertainment and news has been far more corrosive than any addition of news channels with foreign ownership will ever be.

Democracy Now's Amy Goodman did some follow up to Al Jazeera's reporting on the state of the Gulf of Mexico and the fishing industry there, two years after the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

Gulf Oil Spill: BP Execs Escape Punishment as Fallout from Disaster Continues to Impact Sea Life:

Two years since the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history, we look at its impact on the Gulf of Mexico’s residents and wildlife even as no BP officials have faced criminal prosecution for the disaster. Eleven workers died when the Deepwater Horizon well exploded, and almost five million barrels of crude oil leaked into the ocean before the well was plugged after 51 days. BP maintains the Gulf is rapidly recovering thanks to the company’s efforts, but Al Jazeera reporter Dahr Jamail describes how scientists say shrimp, fish and crabs in the Gulf of Mexico have been deformed by oil and chemicals released during the spill cleanup effort. Meanwhile, ProPublica’s environmental reporter, Abrahm Lustgarten, says the company failed to learn from past mistakes that could have helped avoid the explosion. He is the author of the new book, "Run to Failure: BP and the Making of the Deepwater Horizon Disaster."

Full transcript is available at the link above. Our corporate media actually did a small amount of reporting on this news after Al Jazeera broke their story on the diseased fish and shrimp coming out of the Gulf, but I'll be surprised to see much more follow up from sources other than those like Al Jazeera and Democracy Now.

Another incisive documentary by Al Jazeera. The Kochs combined wealth is estimated by Forbes magazine to be around $35 billion USD.

Al Jazeera English narrator: Money has always played a key role in American politics. But is it now distorting the democractic process? That is the charge made against Charles and David Koch. With a year to go until the presidential election, could the Koch brother's fortune put a radical right [winger] into the White House?

Video from Al Jazeera English. Text from Politico:

Foukara asked Rumsfeld whether, in hindsight, the Bush administration had sent enough troops into Iraq to secure the borders of the country, and whether that made the United States culpable in the death of innocent Iraqis. Foukara said people in the Pentagon told Rumsfeld the quantity of troops sent into Iraq was insufficient.

“You keep making assertions which are fundamentally false. No one in the Pentagon said they were not enough,” Rumsfeld said. The interview, taped in September, only went downhill from there.

Foukara pressed Rumsfeld repeatedly.

“Do you want to yell or do you want to have an interview?” Rumsfeld asked. “You’re being true to form.”

“Do you think the numbers that you went to Iraq with did absolve you from the responsibility of tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis killed by the Coalition and those criminals that you talked about?” asked Foukara.

Rumsfeld called the question “pejorative,” said Foukara was “not being respectful” (Foukara disagreed) and was “just talking over, and over, and over again.”

“You have just disparaged me as a member of Al Jazeera. But that’s OK. Just give me a straight answer,” Foukara shot back.

Eventually, Rumsfeld called the exchange “worthless” and said, “This is not an interview. You’re haranguing.”

I'm not sure I'd have the patience or stomach to sit through much more of it. Par for the course, when Rumsfeld didn't like the questions he was being asked, he resorted to attacking the interviewer.

General Eric Shinseki might object with Rumsfeld's characterization of the Pentagon's position on troop levels.

Yes, a car. The only country on the face of the earth to impose such laws. Via Al Jazeera:

Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world to ban women, both Saudi and foreign, from driving. The prohibition forces families to hire live-in drivers, and those who cannot afford the $300 to $400 a month for a driver must rely on male relatives to drive them to work, school, shopping or the doctor.

And people wonder why change is so difficult in an area with regimes as reactionary as Saudi Arabia, a country with enormous influence and clout, especially among the Gulf states. And it would be easy to dismiss this as simply the product of backwards thinking or religious intolerance, but it is more than that. Kafka himself would be impressed by the lengths they've gone to for complete and utter control.

The reports are a bit sketchy but it appears the woman arrested (Manal al Sharif) was detained yesterday for questioning, let go, rearrested and is now being being held in a women's prison, a reform facility. Her Facebook page taken down, and her YouTube account seems to have been closed in the last hour, although for now the videos are still up.

This is the 21st century, right?

Via The Guardian:

Saudi authorities have arrested an activist who launched a campaign to challenge a ban on women driving in the conservative kingdom and posted a video on the internet of her behind the wheel, activists said.

The YouTube video, posted on Thursday, has attracted more than 500,000 views and shows Manal Alsharif, who learned to drive in the US, driving her car in Khobar in the oil-producing Eastern Province.

"Police arrested her at 3am this morning," said Maha Taher, another activist who launched her own campaign for women driving four months ago to spread awareness of the issue.

An Eastern Province police spokesman declined to comment and an interior ministry spokesman was not immediately available for comment.

Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy that does not tolerate any form of dissent and applies an austere version of Sunni Islam, in which religious police patrol the streets to ensure public segregation between men and women.

Women are not allowed to drive and must have written approval from a designated guardian - a father, husband, brother or son - to leave the country, work or travel abroad.

The campaign Alsharif launched is aimed at teaching women to drive and encouraging them to start driving from 17 June, using foreign-issued licences.

While there is no written law that specifically bans women from driving, citizens must use locally issued licences which are not issued to women, making it effectively illegal for them to drive.

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Our own John Amato made an appearance on Al Jazeera to discuss the "carnival barkers" and birthers out there that President Obama attempted to placate by finally releasing the long form of his birth certificate.

The Al Jazeera anchor asked John if he thought it was a mistake for President Obama to produce his long form birth certificate. As John noted, when you've got 45% of registered Republican voters actually believing this nonsense that the President wasn't born in the United States and when you tie that into very powerful interests like Trump who is out there touting this stuff, the administration decided they'd finally had enough of it and decided to attempt to put an end to this story.

When asked if responding to these conspiracy theorists is just going to promote more of this stuff like asking about the President's degree from Harvard or college records, John pointed out that people like Pat Buchanan who was questioning his college records and using the term "affirmative action president" are doing nothing but using code words to dog whistle the racist elements of the Republican base.

As John noted, this obviously won't put an end to the right wing questioning the legitimacy of our President and what a sad case this is and what our political dialog has become when we've got real problems we should be worrying about instead of this nonsense.

The Al Jazeera host asked John why there isn't more outrage from Democrats and from the White House and why they don't just come out and call Trump what he is, a racist.

John pointed out that President Obama, as the first African American President has always been in a precarious position with this since he's tried to be the president of the United States, and not just the president of African Americans and the poor.

Sadly as John alluded to here, it really didn't matter how President Obama has governed. There is a large segment of our population that was never going to accept that a black man was elected president. The "carnival barkers" like Trump and Buchanan have just laid that fact bare with their idiotic and racist remarks.

From Democracy Now -- WikiLeaks Documents Reveal U.S. Knowingly Imprisoned 150 Innocent Men at Guantánamo:

The whistleblowing website WikiLeaks has begun releasing thousands of secret documents from the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo Bay that reveal the Bush and Obama administrations knowingly imprisoned more than 150 innocent men for years without charge. In dozens of cases, senior U.S. commanders were said to have concluded that there was no reason for the men to have been transferred to Guantánamo. Among the innocent prisoners were an 89-year-old Afghan villager and a 14-year-old boy who had been kidnapped. Some men were imprisoned at Guantánamo simply because they wore a popular model of Casio watches, which had been used as timers by al-Qaeda. The documents also reveal that the journalist Sami al-Hajj was held at Guantánamo for six years partly in order to be interrogated about his employer, the Al Jazeera network. Al-Hajj’s file said he was sent to Guantánamo in order to "provide information on ... the Al-Jazeera news network’s training programme, telecommunications equipment, and newsgathering operations in Chechnya, Kosovo and Afghanistan." For more, we speak with journalist Andy Worthington, author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison.

Full transcript at Democracy Now's site.