A Moving World

Christopher Hitchens and the Kings County Landfill

2011-12-18T15:58:00.000-06:00

"It is only those who hope to transform human beings who end up by burning them, like the waste product of a failed experiment."

--C. Hitchens, Letters to a Young Contrarian, 2001

On November 9, about a month ago, Christopher Hitchens' elegant statement about burning bodies and failed experiments was revealed to be not just figuratively powerful, but literally true. That was the day we learned that the nation's main military mortuary at Dover AFB had been incinerating dead soldiers (or parts of them) from Iraq and Afghanistan and tossing the remains into a Virginia dump. The King George County Landfill, specifically.

Initially the numbers involved were not known. But the process by which this happened was pried from the current administration by the Washington Post, following a decade of enforced secrecy on mortuary processes imposed by Bush the First and maintained through Bush II:

The Air Force said it first cremated the remains and then included those ashes in larger loads of mortuary medical waste that were burned in an incinerator and taken to a landfill. Incinerating medical waste is a common disposal practice but including cremated human ashes is not, according to funeral home directors, regulators and waste haulers.

Air Force officials said they do not know when the landfill disposals began. They said their first record of it is Feb. 23, 2004. The mortuary database became operational in late 2003.

The revelation of the process had predictable impact:

Gari-Lynn Smith, portions of whose husband’s remains were disposed of in the landfill after his 2006 death in Iraq, said she was “appalled and disgusted” by the way the Air Force had acted. She learned of the landfill disposal earlier this spring in a letter from a senior official at the Dover mortuary.

“My only peace of mind in losing my husband was that he was taken to Dover and that he was handled with dignity, love, respect and honor,” Smith said. “That was completely shattered for me when I was told that he was thrown in the trash.”

After four years of letters, phone calls and records requests, she received a letter from the mortuary in April stating that the military cremated and incinerated those partial remains and disposed of them in the King George landfill.

“I hope this information brings some comfort to you during your time of loss,” read the letter, signed by Dean.

On the 7th of this month the Post published again, this time with information that Dover had processed 967 fragmentary remains associated with 274 soldiers--had burned them in an incinerator, combined them with medical waste, and dumped them in the landfill.

Not included in this total were an additional 1,761 partial human remains that were not DNA-assayed and from which an estimate of "Minimum Number of Individuals" was apparently never calculated. This means that the count of 274 soldiers disposed of in this manner is almost certainly too low, and it seems doubtful that the remains we currently know about are the only ones that were treated in this way.

For those like me who struggle with our writing, Hitchens' skill was a thing of beauty. But it is impossible to balance his statement above with Hitchens' subsequent rigid defense of the invasion, occupation, and ultimately, the destruction of Iraq. Especially following the rise of the Arab Spring and how that home-grown movement has put the lie to America's stated efforts to 'promote democracy" in the region.

Hitchens was right the first time, and he should have stuck with it. If anything, he understated it. US policy in Iraq, rather than transforming the region, is ending in bloody failure, and the returning body parts and the dead soldiers who once owned them are not being burned "like the waste-product of a failed experiment". These are exactly that--soldiers bundled with and treated as biological waste products, secretly swept away from a failed experiment and hidden in a Virginia ash-heap.

Karl Rove's Spectacular Lies

2011-12-09T18:04:00.001-06:00

Photo credit: Rove Republican Racket.

OK, so Turd Blossom is back and he's attacked Elizabeth Warren in Massachusetts, on the grounds that she is too close to Wall Street. It's the sort of jaw-dropping, laugh-out-loud lie that has all the vista and splendor of the Grand Canyon.

I mean really. Look at that damned lie. It's magnificent.

Immediately, Rortybomb, Baseline Scenario, The Nation, and The American Prospect have all jumped in and assailed Rove. Here is Mike Konczal at Rortybomb, for example:

To me, the most amusing thing about Karl Rove’s attack ad on Elizabeth Warren is that it shows how adaptable conservative attacks on liberals are. Because I’m old enough to remember the attempts, mostly by conservatives but by several others, in early 2009 to say that Warren’s Congressional Oversight Panel was way too hard on the banks.

Adaptable? I don't think so. This is simply Rove's signature move, and there is nothing adaptable (if adaptable means flexible or changeable) about it. Remember how he defeated John Kerry? He took Kerry's strongest feature--his decorated war record in Viet Nam--and turned it upside down. Remember Max Cleland, former Senator and author of the book "Heart of a Patriot: How I Found the Courage to Survive Vietnam, Walter Reed and Karl Rove"? Cleland was turned from a war hero senator to a terrorist-loving former-senator in a matter of months. This is exactly what Rove is now doing to Warren--attack where they're strongest.

Unfortunately, in addition to the sheer spectacular grandeur of Rove's Big Lies, they are known to work on American voters. And the fact that he's still launching these with (so far) no penalty whatsoever suggests that Democrats and the professional left have yet to find an effective response.

A Disturbing Account of DHS Presence at Occupy Los Angeles

2011-12-05T12:25:00.001-06:00

There has been much interest and speculation regarding the role DHS and other federal agencies have had regarding law enforcement/surveillance activies surrounding the Occupy Movement. See, for example, the ongoing discussion between Naomi Wolf and Joshua Holland on this.

Here is a recently-released account from a member of Occupy LA that--if verifiable, is highly relevant to the topic. A link to the video was recently retweeted by Occupy Los Angeles (@occupyla). I have provided a full verbatim transcript below the video.

[Ed. Note: The video linked in this post has been removed at the YouTube source, presumably by its author. I am leaving the transcript, which I produced myself, in place here.]

One problem with this account is that the OLA member never states why he felt the individuals who picked him up were DHS personnel. His statement shows that it is obvious to him that they were DHS, but there is nothing in the account that reveals why he is so certain that this is the case.

If I can get any further information or verification on this, I'll update.

Full transcript begins here:

OK:

Yesterday November 25, 2011, I was at the Occupy LA site andme and several people had spotted some Department of Homeland Security agentsand, basically what I did was, I started letting people know who they were.

I started looking at [undecipherable}, basically trying tofigure out who they are, profiling them,probing them. I walked up to agentleman, I asked him some questions, because a few days ago he came up to meand asked me some questions.

He said he was a marine, but uh, obviously they were workingfor DHS. I wound up tailing who I call “thelumberjack” back to the federal building, and the gentleman was approximately5’9”, umm, I want to say maybe 250-260, he wore a flannel jacket that was red,he had a great big bushy brown beard. Hewore a ball cap and some glasses. He hada roll, a cardboard roll, that normally you’d find in with paper towels in oneof his hands. I’m not sure if he wasgoing to use it to shout, or what not. And I followed him back to the federal building.

On my way back, nothing strange seemed to take place. What I was doing was 360--a 360. I walked around the camp a couple of times,and during that time I saw a gentleman arrested who was playing a guitar, hewas not doing anything wrong, it was very strange to me. The arresting officers, one was named Malek(sp?), the other one was a corporal, his badge number was #4305 or…or #43055,I’m not sure which one it is, it’s one or the other.

After that had happened, I began making my way around thenorth side of city hall. While I was overthere, two cruisers pulled up. The twogentlemen that arrested the guy that was playing with his guitar walked up tome, placed me in handcuffs. I asked themwhat I’m being charged with, he said “walking across the street on a redlight.” So I’m assuming jaywalking. And that’s completely false, I didn’t… Iwasn’t walking across the street on a red light--I always wait at thecrosswalk, I always wait for the, you know, the blue guy that says I cango. And they put me in the cruiser, theytold me I wasn’t being arrested, that I was just going to be cited.

They took me to temple which is just west of city hall. They then began probing me, asked me what Iwas doing there, what I did in the military. My information was already up on their computer. They already knew who I was. They then advised me to leave, and if Ididn’t, I would never see the light of day again. They said they would charge me with variouscharges. I asked them what charges, andthe guy said he didn’t know, that his supervisor wasn’t sure what they wantedto charge me with yet.

One of the officers was a marine, he told me that they wouldallow me to go free as long as I would never return. They said if I do return, something willhappen to my family. The officer showedme a picture of my son, which I’ve never seen before. It’s not one that…that I know of anybody thatI know took it.

And I … at that point I was, I was really scared. I wasn’t sure what to do. I just complied with everything they said. Itold them I was gonna leave right away, they wouldn’t see me again—you know,whatever…whatever I can say to basically let me go so I can find out to see ifmy family is OK.

And so I went back to camp, I told several people in a veryshort manner of what happened. I toldthem that they just detained me and then they have my family, so I have toleave. I grabbed my stuff, I got on thebus, I went home.

I called my family, everything was OK. So…I’m under the impression that it is afear-tactic that they’re trying to do. Agorilla arrest to try to scare people there, you know, to not be there.

So that’s basically what had happened yesterday. I do plan on returning. It’s very scary what our government is doingto us right now, but I won’t let them stop us. So that’s basically what happened yesterday. My name is Michael Lasley and my DOB is11/16/85. In case something does happento me, everyone will have a chance to know what I experienced that day and ourgovernment is capable of making people disappear.

And that’s it.

End transcript

The Bombings Will Continue Until Morale Improves

2011-11-28T09:45:00.001-06:00

(Update Below)

No doubt the response from Obama administration officials will be something like "We understand their frustrations," but the insanity will continue to chase its own tail until it drops, exhausted.

AFP, today:

Obama burned in effigy, Karachi Pakistan 11/27/11

Hundreds of enraged Pakistanis took to the streets across the country Sunday, burning an effigy of President Barack Obama and setting fire to US flags after 24 soldiers died in NATO air strikes.

The rallies were organised by opposition and right-wing Islamist groups in major cities of the nuclear-armed country of 167 million people, where opposition to the government's US alliance is rampant.

In Karachi, the port city used by the United States to ship supplies to troops fighting in Afghanistan, more than 700 people gathered outside the US consulate, an AFP photographer said.

They shouted: "down with America, stay away Americans, Pakistanis ours, we stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our army", while Pakistani riot police were deployed near the consulate.

Outside the press club in Karachi, dozens of political activists burnt an effigy of President Obama, an AFP photographer added.

In the central city of Multan, more than 300 activists loyal to the former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, as well as local traders took to the streets, burning US and NATO flags.

They carried placards and banners, and shouted: "down with America," "down with NATO," "Yankees go back", "vacate Afghanistan and Pakistan" and "stop drone attacks" -- a reference to a CIA drone war against Islamist militants.

Speaking at the rally, opposition lawmaker Javed Hashmi demanded that the government end its alliance in the US-led "war on terror".

Here at home, Obama's War on Terror is considered his strong-suite. It's the one thing he can't be assailed on, because it's going so very well.

Update 11/29/11

They can't be serious. It's hard to see how anyone in the region is going to believe the latest US explanation.

The Corrupt Origins and Hidden Dangers of Pepper Spray (OC) Use by Law Enforcement

2011-11-20T10:58:00.001-06:00

Technical Note: We've heard that some readers have had trouble posting comments at the blog. If you've had trouble commenting, please tweet me @Casual_Obs, and let me know what browser and OS you're using. Thanks for reading. --CO

Seated UC-Davis protesters bombarded with pepper spray (OC), 11/18/11. According to internal documents from the largest supplier of pepper spray to California police, serious health risks may ensue if police spray a person with OC with more than a single burst of one second duration.

Pepper Spray (or "OC") has been commonly used in the US since long before the Occupy movement began involuntarily soaking up endless streams of it in past months. Classed as a chemical weapon by the UN, pepper spray has been prohibited for military usage through Article I.5 of the Chemical Weapons Convention. The ban became effective in 1997. So what this officer (pictured above) is doing would be completely illegal on any military battlefield on the planet.

Domestically, however, the use of pepper spray by US law enforcement agencies has exploded over the past 20 years or so, just as it was being prohibited internationally as a war crime. In the US, usage of pepper spray exploded following successful feasibility testing by the FBI in the late 1980s. A report of the FBI findings was published in 1989 under the title "Chemical Agent Research: Oleoresin Capsicum." While I have not been able to access that report (more on that in a moment), it found that pepper spray could be used without harm to officers or the public, and recommended adoption. Today, there are at least 16 US manufacturers of pepper spray, and at least two industry trade groups representing their interests.

What is perhaps less known about all this is that the original FBI work done to clear OC for widespread use involved bribery by a leading pepper spay manufacturer, and the agent in charge of the testing was convicted and spent jail time for his role in it. From a 1996 article in the San Francisco Chronicle:

The main study cited by law enforcement agencies to support using pepper spray is apparently tainted by a conflict of interest on the part of an FBI agent who conducted the research.

The pepper spray study was conducted in the late 1980s by FBI Special Agent Thomas W.W. Ward at the FBI academy in Virginia outside Washington, D.C. But Ward did not disclose at the time that he had accepted $57,000 from a pepper spray manufacturer that was laundered through a Florida company owned by his wife, Sheri.
On Friday, Ward was sentenced to two months in federal prison after he had earlier pleaded guilty to federal charges of accepting an illegal gift.
Prosecutors said his short sentence reflected his cooperation with the FBI investigation. The FBI fired Ward for not disclosing a financial conflict of interest.

Based on Ward's research and testing, the FBI decided to buy the chemical product Cap-Stun, whose active ingredient, oleoresin capsicum, is derived from cayenne pepper. The spray is intended to temporarily incapacitate aggressive people by burning their skin and eyes and inflaming their respiratory passages, making breathing painful and difficult.

Critics of pepper spray say the FBI research has been discredited and are calling for further studies. But Bay Area law enforcement agencies, including San Francisco, have no plans to quit using it.

Thomas Ward was convicted in 1996, but by that time the floodgates were already wide open. Today, well over 2000 law enforcement agencies are employing pepper spray on US citizens, all of it based on that key but corrupted and felonious study that, to my knowlege, has never been replaced with a reputable one.

Photo by RL Rasmussen, Oregonian

My attempts to access that study, which was published by the US Goverment Printing Office, have failed as the report is not listed in their inventory (USGPO search engine, accessed 11/20/11).

Some reflections on this. First, while law enforcement and industry representatives claim that pepper spray inflicts only short-term effects on victims, I'm not aware of any independent study regarding the long-term effects of pepper spray exposure. I'm guessing that we're all flying blind on potential long-term effects of OC exposure. Given the confirmed fraud involved in the original FBI study, why has there been no follow-up? Those participating in the current wave of Occupy protests across the country--and importantly their legal representatives in any court actions--should be very aware of these issues.

Aside from long-term health issues, there are also very real concerns about short-term effects and deaths of pepper spray victims while in police custody:

In this report, the ACLU of Southern California identifies 26 deaths among people who were pepper-sprayed by police officers in the period Jan. 1, 1993, through June 1, 1995. The fatality total suggests that one person dies after being pepper sprayed for about every 600 times the spray is used by police.

The fatality summary period ended just before the June 4, 1995, death of parolee Aaron Williams, 37, who, according to witnesses, was savagely beaten, kicked and repeatedly pepper-sprayed by San Francisco Police Department officers in a case that has provoked a major controversy in the Bay Area.

Increased use of pepper spray by law enforcement has raised serious concerns about whether police will use pepper spray to impose a painful chemical “street justice” without resort to criminal charges or the courts. Moreover, the growing number of fatalities in California has provoked questions about whether pepper spray was properly reviewed for safety and effectiveness before it was legalized for use by law officers or civilians.

The ACLU of Southern California obtained access to hundreds of pages of documents from the California Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment that reflect concerns by state scientists over pepper spray’s safety. The ACLU also obtained an internal memorandum produced by the largest supplier of pepper spray to the California police and civilian markets that concludes that serious health risks may ensue if police spray a person with OC with more than a single burst of one second duration.

Democracy Now Swings and Misses on Federal Involvement in Occupy Raids

2011-11-18T10:58:00.001-06:00

Democracy Now broadcast, yesterday:

JUAN GONZALEZ: And I’d like to ask Chuck Wexler, this whole issue of the police chiefs trying to exchange information, was there any involvement of the Department of Homeland Security or the federal officials in the discussions with the various police chiefs?

CHUCK WEXLER: Not on our conference call at all.

AMY GOODMAN: ... But I did want to ask you, how involved is FBI and Homeland Security in these discussions, Chuck Wexler?

CHUCK WEXLER: We haven’t had—they haven’t been involved—maybe they’re involved at the local level, but nationally, at least on our conference calls, I don’t think—they didn’t have a role.

JUAN GONZALEZ: There were some press reports that there were Homeland Security presentations urging that these arrests be conducted late at night.

CHUCK WEXLER: That may have been done at the city level. It wasn’t on our conference calls. We had that—no one from, you know, Homeland Security made that kind of presentation, nor—you know, we were really—we were just comparing notes.

As I wrote recently, and as Democracy Now should have known and reported, Chuck Wexler serves on the DHS Homeland Security Advisory Council. According to DHS, "The Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC) provides advice and recommendations to the Secretary on matters related to homeland security."

So what DN did was ask a sitting member of a highly-placed DHS advisory group, Wexler, who had coordinated at least two conference calls between a reported 40 different local law enforcement agencies across the country, if DHS had any involvement in those calls. And when he said "no", Democracy Now let it go.

At the very least, DN should have known and established Wexler's very public, formal, and clear connection to DHS. For Wexler's part, he should have disclosed at some point that, "oh by the way, I myself am affiliated with the agency you're asking me about." He also left open the door that there could have been federal involvement at the local level (which seems reasonably likely, given the role of DHS-affiliated "fusion centers"), but this was not pursued by Democracy Now.

These aren't trivial considerations. There have been blatant and highly questionable examples of abuse against peaceful demonstrators. A total of 27 members of the "free" press have been arrested on very questionable grounds. The public has a right to know the nature of any federal involvement here for many reasons, not the least of them stated by Wexler himself during the DN segment:

And I think the police are far more careful about not wanting to be drawn into something that really has nothing to do with them, and really trying as much as they can to exercise restraint, to use intermediaries, to reach out to the leaders of these Occupy movements. The challenge is, there aren’t really any leaders, or if there are leaders, they don’t want to be leaders. So it’s difficult to know who’s responsible, who’s in charge.

It that is true for the Occupy Movement, it applies equally to the law enforcement side. The public has a right to know "who's in charge" of law enforcement when it comes to how constitutionally-protected Occupy protests are being handled (or manhandled) across the country. And Wexler's non-disclosure of his own link to DHS doesn't provide much confidence that we're sorting this out very well, at least so far.

Update 2:45

National Lawyers Guild and Partnership for Civil Justice Fund have jointly FOIAed DOJ on this exact issue. We'll see what the response is. I'm not familiar with the PCJF, but the NLG has been an irreplaceable asset throughout the course of these protests. Credit to both organizations for doing this.

A Question of Federal Involvement in Occupy Wall Street (#OWS) Raids

2011-11-15T11:52:00.001-06:00

(This story is developed further here.)

Greg Lavine writes that Mayor Jean Quan of Oakland revealed that she had participated in a conference call among 18 mayors nationwide prior to her own raid on Occupy Oakland. Lavine quotes Quan: “I was recently on a conference call with 18 cities across the country who had the same situation. . . .”

Add to this Dan Siegel's comment (Siegel was a legal adviser to Quan who quit his job in protest of Quan's actions), during this morning's "Democracy Now" news broadcast in which he wondered aloud if federal "fusion centers" may have been involved in some way. Wikipedia defines "fusion centers" thus:

A fusion center is a terrorism prevention and response center, many of which were created under a joint project between the Department of Homeland Security and the US Department of Justice's Office of Justice Programs between 2003 and 2007.
The fusion centers gather information not only from government sources, but also from their partners in the private sector.

Fusion centers are further described in this exchange between Amy Goodman and the ACLU's Mike German from an earlier Democracy Now broadcast: (July 28th, 2009)

AMY GOODMAN: Explain what you mean, Mike, by fusion centers.

MIKE GERMAN: About two years ago, me and a colleague at the ACLU started investigating a lot of federal money going to what were called intelligence fusion centers. And I was only two years out of federal law enforcement at that point, and I had never heard this term, so I became concerned. And what these centers are is multi-jurisdictional intelligence centers that involve state, local and federal law enforcement, as well as other government entities — you know, a lot of times there are emergency services type of entities, but actually can’t involve any government entity — but also involve oftentimes the military and private companies.

So we produced a report in November of 2007 warning of the potential dangers that these multi-jurisdictional centers had, because it was unclear whose rules applied. Were we using federal rules? Were we using state rules? Local rules? And what was military and private company — what rules govern their conduct? So we put out this report in November of 2007. At that point, there were forty-two fusion centers. By July of 2008, we had found so many instances of abuse, we put out an updated report. At that point, there were fifty-eight fusion centers. Today, the DHS recognizes at least seventy-two fusion centers. So these things are rapidly growing, without any sort of proper boundaries on what activities happen within them and without really any idea of what it is the military is doing in these fusion centers and what type of access they have to US person information.

This document, downloaded this morning from the Office of Justice Programs at DOJ, clearly states that fusion centers can and do play a key role in what they term "First Amendment-Protected Events". The document, ("Law Enforcement Guidelines for First Amendment-Protected Events"), indicates important roles for fusion centers in events such as those taking place in Occupy actions across the country and at OWS specifically (fusion centers are referenced throughout the document, below is an example):

If a criminal predicate or reasonable suspicion is identified or the findings of the Pre-Event Assessment provide specific, actionable intelligence, fusion centers may support agency leadership and law enforcement officers by identifying the collection requirements applicable to the event, based on the mission and role of the fusion center. In those limited circumstances, fusion centers should also be involved in any post-event activities, including the information evaluation, dissemination, and retention efforts. Fusion centers should not be involved in post-event evaluation, dissemination, and retention efforts of events that involve only routine public safety issues, such as conflicts between demonstrators or crowd-control problems.

I don't want to go all conspiratorial on this, but I think it's important to find out whether fusion centers (and thus DHS and DOJ) were indeed involved with any coordination or other activities surrounding this most-recent wave of Occupy raids. As these centers are at least nominally defined as "terrorism prevention and response centers", it would be worth asking DOJ and DHS officials if they view Occupy activities as being in any way related to terrorism. I'd also like to know the legal implications of any federal involvement prior to, during, and/or after the raids, in which constitutional violations and/or other illegal actions may well have occurred.

It is one thing if the Occupy Movement is encountering individual mayors who make poor and/or conceivably illegal decisions regarding constitutionally-protected rights of assembly and speech. It is quite another thing if those mayors are receiving federal coordination, planning, or other assistance in doing so, under the rubric of homeland security and anti-terrorism.

Update 4:26 CDT

A little tenuous substantiation here:

Over the past ten days, more than a dozen cities have moved to evict "Occupy" protesters from city parks and other public spaces. As was the case in last night's move in New York City, each of the police actions shares a number of characteristics. And according to one Justice official, each of those actions was coordinated with help from Homeland Security, the FBI and other federal police agencies.
...
The FBI has so far failed to respond to requests for an official response, and of the 14 local police agencies contacted in the past 24 hours, all have declined to respond to questions on this issue.

Unfortunate that we have only a single unnamed source in the linked article. Hopefully someone will be able to push a specific question on this and get an answer on the nature of federal involvement in this growing number of Occupy raids.

Update 7:45

One other relevant item on this issue--I'd forgotten about Naomi Wolf's story, related in the UK paper The Guardian. On October 18th, Wolf and her partner were arrested in association with an Occupy Wall Street action on Hudson Street, outside an event hosted by The Huffington Post to which Wolf was an invited guest (as was Governor Cuomo). Following her arrest, OWS protesters attempted to follow her to the NYPD first precinct office where they thought she was detained. As Wolf relates:

Another scary outcome I discovered is that, when the protesters marched to the first precinct, the whole of Erickson Street was cordoned off – "frozen" they were told, "by Homeland Security". Obviously if DHS now has powers to simply take over a New York City street because of an arrest for peaceable conduct by a middle-aged writer in an evening gown, we have entered a stage of the closing of America, which is a serious departure from our days as a free republic in which municipalities are governed by police forces.

Wolf's story echoes the abuses alluded to above by ACLU attorney Mike German when he warned about the "potential dangers that these multi-jurisdictional centers had, because it was unclear whose rules applied. Were we using federal rules? Were we using state rules? Local rules"?

I think Wolf's story answers German's question by observing that law enforcement officials will use any and all of 'em. The rules that apply will be the ones authorities want to be applied.

Update 12:00

CBS news is reporting more information on coordination prior to the recent raids. Specifically, two conference calls included officials from 40 cities across the US and were organized by a D.C. think-tank named the "Police Executive Research Forum" (PERF). The calls took place on Oct. 11 and Nov. 4th:

While riot police sweeping through tent cities in Portland, Ore., Oakland, Calif. and New York City over the last several days may suggest a coordinated effort, authorities and a group that organized the calls say they were a coincidence.
"It was completely spontaneous," said Chuck Wexler, director of the Police Executive Research Forum, a national police group that organized calls on Oct. 11 and Nov. 4.

What CBS does not mention is that Wexler, Executive Director of PERF, serves on The Department of Homeland Security's Homeland Security Advisory Council.

Listening to the Occupy Movement

2011-11-11T12:39:00.001-06:00

Tag-clouds and word-clouds are probably used too much these days, but I think the format may be useful in presenting the "Occupy Movement" to the public. Word-clouds represent spoken or written speech by graphically weighting words based on their frequency of appearance. This graphical approach may be a useful communication tool, I think, because the public appears to maintain a poor grasp of what "Occupy" is about.

As an example, below is a word-cloud representation of an early and important declaration from Occupy Wall Street which was accepted by the OWS general assembly on September 29th, 2011.

Occupy Wall Street declaration of September 2011 as word-cloud image.

The resulting image helps to very quickly convey what this OWS statement was about. In creating the image above, I changed one word in the original document. In the original declaration, OWS put the following statement in its opening paragraph (emphasis added):

We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice and oppression over equality, run our governments.

The declaration then goes on to list (in bullet format) a number of specific complaints against corporations, in which corporations are referred to as "they". In producing the word-cloud, I have changed the pronoun "they" back to the entity being referred to--"corporations". Aside from that technical change, the text being fed into the word-cloud generator (in this case, wordle, but others are available) is directly from the OWS declaration document.

Given the public's continuing lack of clarity regarding what "Occupy" is about, and given the diverse concerns present among Occupiers themselves, the word-cloud may be a useful communication tool both inside and outside the movement.

Update

Another example, which combines Declaration texts from multiple cities in three countries (US, Canada and UK). Included in the word-cloud below are Declarations from the following locations: Occupy Alaska, Occupy Astoria (OR), Occupy Berkeley, Occupy Bloomington-Normal, Occupy Erie, Occupy London UK, Occupy Memphis, Occupy Louisville, Occupy Wall Street, and Occupy Tri-Cities (WA). The geographic locations are diverse, but the consensus is devastatingly clear.

Update 11/22/11

Here is a word cloud (click on image to enlarge) done by Occupy Boston, representing survey results from a poll of Occupiers, as printed in the first issue of The Boston Occupier. Brilliant!

Update 12/1/11

Occupy D.C. has just published its declaration. Here it is in word cloud format:

Listening to Occupy Oakland

2011-11-04T19:45:00.000-05:00

Occupation Oakland encampment 10/31/11

On October 31st I visited Occupy Oakland (OO, twitter feed #OO and #OccupyOakland). I wanted to listen to occupiers in order to find out what they were thinking and doing, and more specifically why they joined the Occupy Movement. I also wanted to get their opinions concerning whether the Occupy movement should have a central message to the larger public, and whether they themselves had a fundamental or underlying message about what the Occupy movement is about.

Ted McCoy is one of several people who run the OO Library.

Ted McCoy

There is a media tent at the encampment, but at the time I visited the media team was likely engaged with a local TV team or two. After waiting a bit, I went next door to the Occupy Oakland library tent and talked with Ted McCoy, one of several librarians serving the encampment. Ted, who appeared to me to be in his 30's, is a grad student in library studies and is working his way through school working part time at the Oakland Public Library. He also has a BA in American Studies and a JD in Law. He lives in San Francisco. Ted had just recently begun participating at Occupy Oakland.

McCoy's motivation for coming to OO stemmed from his concern for failing public institutions in Oakland, much of this due to budget cuts and austerity measures. In his job as librarian at Oakland Public Library, he has become aware of how many in the community--many of them poor--are dependent on libraries for internet access and electronic communication. The severity of the digital divide is made worse in Oakland by severe public budget cuts to the few facilities where internet access is available to the public. He also pointed to the high rate of foreclosures in the bay area generally, and how those had given rise to a feeling of alienation and dispossession. "People don't feel they have a stake in this community any more" he said.

Since arriving at OO, McCoy has gained an appreciation for the diversity of causes people have brought to the protest. It's more complex than he had realized and goes far beyond his own reasons for joining. He hasn't participated in the OO general assembly sessions, and spends his available time rebuilding the encampment library--"we lost the entire thing in the raid [the police raid on the encampment] last Tuesday".

Even though he sees the diverse concerns of the Oakland occupiers, McCoy did see an underlying common theme in the movement message. "It's economic injustice", he said, "and we're all vulnerable to that".

Markos Greenwood

Markos Greenwod

Greenwood is a San Francisco native, perhaps in his late 20s or early 30s, and joined OO on "Day One" (the occupation began October 10). He described Occupy Wall Street (which occurred September 17th) as "The trumpet call: it showed somebody finally realized what was going on." As we sat and spoke, Greenwood monitored a handheld radio, occasionally speaking into it. When I asked about his activities as part of OO, he said he was part of a security team, which I assume was tasked with guarding or monitoring the encampment.

The reasons Greenwood joined the occupation centered on his perception of a lack of equal social justice, inequalities in access to education, political representation, economic opportunity. He was especially concerned with the power of corporations and the effect of money in politics. He stressed that he didn't wish ill of those whom occupiers term the 1%. Greenwood stressed that his goal as an occupier was to do away with a system, not attack any segment of society. That said, he is clearly distrustful of the motivations of the very rich when they feel the need to "rig the political system. How can your political motivations be good for the public if you have to buy politicians in order to get your way?" he asked. When asked if the Occupy movement should have a central message, and if so what it might be, Greenwood said "get the money out of politics."

Gwendolyn

Gwendolyn (last name withheld)

An ordained minister, Gwendolyn joined Occupy Oakland "about 6 days in." An Oakland resident, Gwendolyn doesn't live in the encampment, but participates daily, including the daily general assembly. When I asked her why she joined OO, she responded immediately: "because I'm against abuse--and government is closing its eyes." She mentioned that there is some political history in her family. Her uncle was Arthur Fletcher, an influential civil rights activist and a major figure in Affirmative Action enforcement while serving in the Nixon and Ford Administrations.

While she has no formal role in the occupation, Gwendolyn tries to "motivate and inspire" the Oakland protest. As the occupation has continued, Gwendolyn has been able to refine and crystallize the reasons that brought her to the protest originally--"participation has helped me to bring this out--we want freedom to live as ordinary human beings. The people we're calling the 1% have become a problem for our society, because of greed."

Thoughts on the visit

The three people I talked to at Occupy Oakland represent a tiny sample and can't be demonstrated to be representative of the OO protest, let alone the much larger national Occupy Movement. I wish I'd had much more time to speak with folks at the encampment and gain a larger sample, as it was a very uplifting experience to hear them. There are however strong underlying similarities among the three occupiers, even though they may have come to the protest for their own reasons. I'd propose that each of those interviewed are protesting against systemic inequality. Unequal access to education, unequal access to government representation, unequal access to justice, unequal access to opportunity. While each may have experienced that inequality in different ways and in different social realms, the underlying similarities are compelling.

"Horse Race" Media Reporting Arrives at Occupy Wall Street

2011-10-25T00:18:00.000-05:00

One way to avoid the laborious task of actual analysis of presidential candidates and their policies is to simply forego the "hard news" and instead focus on the "horse race"--who's ahead and who's behind at any given moment. I imagine that, compared with hard news pieces with actual content, horse race articles almost write themselves--one simply records the latest polling data, observes that candidate Smith moved up, candidate Jones moved down. You might add a note on fundraising status, and/or get a couple of soundbite quotes from various competing campaign staffers about strategy or spin, and send it off. The beauty of such coverage (again, if the object is to avoid generating difficult stuff like policy content and analysis) is that one can essentially write the same article over and over simply by changing the dates and plugging in the latest polling data, rearranging the candidate names to suit the numbers. Granted, you've also got to get new sound-bites/quotes from the campaign staffs, but you've got all those guys on speed-dial now anyway.

In addition, horse race coverage is popular, and therefore lucrative for media companies:

Given access to a wide variety of news reports about the presidential campaign in the weeks immediately preceding the 2000 election, we find that voters were drawn to reports on the horserace and strategy. Strategy reports proved far more popular than reports about the issues.

There is a downside however. Horse race coverage produces voters who are poorly-informed, as shown here in an analysis of how this type of coverage impacted public understanding during last year's healthcare debate:

While there was certainly a lot of coverage of the bill, the framing and mix of what got covered may have contributed to the public’s confusion on the issue. While the largest component, by far, focused on politics, only a small fraction highlighted the issue at the core of the debate—how the U.S. health care industry actually functions.

Horse race coverage has also been found to boost cynicism, eroding public confidence in government generally:

Although media organizations stand to profit, the overproduction of horserace news takes a toll on the political commons. Our results indicate that exposure to this genre of campaign news contributed to increased cynicism about the candidates and the electoral process itself.

Thanks to CNN (a leading peddler of fluffy journalism, but many other examples are available) we're now seeing a wave of this kind of reporting being applied to the Occupy Wall Street phenomenon. Here's an example of the horse race approach:

Among those who have an opinion, the public is split on how they feel about Occupy Wall Street. Thirty-two percent of Americans say they have a favorable view of the movement that has spread from Wall Street to Chicago, and that even cropped up at the most recent CNN presidential debate in Las Vegas. Twenty-nine percent of the nation says they have an unfavorable view of Occupy Wall Street.

Similar recent reporting on OWS has focused on whether it is more or less popular than the Tea Party, as if the two were themselves in a race for office. This coverage is particularly misleading in that it attempts to position the two as unrelated opposites. In reality, as Frank Rich recently observed, "The tea-party ... and Occupy Wall Street are two sides of the same coin."

There are at least two significant dangers to OWS presented by this kind of media coverage. First, and as mentioned above, election-style horse race coverage will not educate and inform the public about what OWS actually is, or what it may become as it evolves. If it evolves. It serves instead as a diversion of public attention, and a hindrance to understanding.

Second, popularity may be largely irrelevant to the success or failure of the movement. The Tea Party has never been very popular with the general public, and yet it has successfully taken over the US House of Representatives (and, by default, the entire legislative branch). There may be a time when OWS becomes significantly less popular than it is now, but such a change need not kill the movement or stop it from reaching what might be very beneficial goals.

There are no doubt many obstacles facing OWS, but one of the most serious of these is likely to be how the movement is covered by the press. Too little coverage doesn't appear to be a problem any longer. But too much of the usual reporting is looking like a more serious issue going forward. Death by journalism. It could happen.

After Nine Years of War, Iraq Liberates the US

2011-10-22T15:41:00.000-05:00

Source: http://hereinvannuys.wordpress.com/2009/04/23/protests/

As has been widely noted, Obama's decision to remove all remaining troops from Iraq was the result of failed negotiations over legal immunity for any US troops that would have remained after 2011. The number under negotiation was, according to an interesting article by Josh Rogin at Foreign Policy Magazine, anywhere from 4,000 to 20,000 troops. Immunity, of course, would mean that any action undertaken by occupying US troops that led to property damage, injuries and/or deaths of Iraqi citizens could not be redressed under Iraqi law or by Iraqi courts. Given our long and very bloody history in Iraq, it is intuitively obvious that many Iraqis would not want to continue granting such a legal blank-check to Obama, even if some in both countries did see benefits in keeping a small US force within the country. Shame on the Iraqi government for representing that widespread view in their dealings with the US.

The new argument coming from conservative critics of this decision is that Obama "bungled" these negotiations by insisting that the Iraqi Parliament (and not just Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki) must sign off on any immunity agreement. Iraqi nationalist anti-occupation and anti-immunity sentiment there was apparently strong enough to block any agreement that would keep American forces in Iraq beyond the 2011 calendar year, a deadline previously established between Iraq and the Bush administration. Behind these criticisms is a vague, unproven, and yet constantly echoed argument that Iraq is going to invite Iran in, as soon as it is finished kicking the US out. Such claims have never been substantiated, nor are they consistent with Iraqi national identity.

Leaving aside the issue of a supposed shadowy and evil Iranian presence lurking in the background, it is hard to envision how such an agreement could be undertaken without the participation and approval of Iraq's elected parliament, but Rogin's article provides a platform for conservative critics such as Marissa Cochrane Sullivan (based at the Neoconservative "Institute for the Study of War") who are critical of how the negotiations were handled, using the familiar refrain that Iraq is a special case, and that normal measures such as parliamentary approval simply don't apply:

"Iraq is not a normal country, the security environment is not normal, the embassy is not a normal embassy," said Marisa Cochrane Sullivan, managing director at the Institute for the Study of War...From the beginning, the talks unfolded in a way where they largely driven by domestic political concerns, both in Washington and Baghdad. Both sides let politics drive the process, rather than security concerns," said Sullivan.

...

"An obvious fix for troop immunity is to put them all on the diplomatic list; that's done by notification to the Iraqi foreign ministry," said one former senior Hill staffer. "If State says that this requires a treaty or a specific agreement by the Iraqi parliament as opposed to a statement by the Iraqi foreign ministry, it has its head up its ass."

Which begs the question--with over a million dead Iraqi citizens spanning the decade since this war began, how could any immunity/basing agreement between Iraq and occupying US forces be anything but "political"? How could they not reflect "domestic concerns"?

Just consider for a moment that the tables were turned, and the two countries were in discussions to base anywhere between 4,000 and 20,000 Iraqi troops not in Iraq, but here in the US. Would we still hear Sullivan, or Rogin's anonymous "former senior Hill staffer" arguing that either 1) that decision would be Obama's alone to decide, without including congress, or; 2) that it would be perfectly fine for Iraq to simply notify our State Department that they would soon be adding many thousands of armed soldiers to Iraq's US embassy staff, and these would be stationed at various bases across America? That kind of proposal is ludicrous to the point of absurdity--and yet it is exactly what is given voice in Rogin's article.

I think a much more realistic way to view this outcome is that Obama was completely correct to insist on Iraq Parliamentary approval of the deal--and in the end, it saved him and us. Whatever institutional or systemic faults may be in Iraqi government (and in the US as well, for that matter), neither the Iraqi parliament nor Prime Minister Maliki were crazy enough to allow the US to continue our two countries' shared agony. The US has helped to stand up a democracy of sorts in Iraq, warts and all. In return, the Iraqi Parliament has finally shown us the door by refusing to let our troops slaughter Iraqi citizens with impunity. In doing so, Iraq has liberated us. Obama, in spite of his best efforts extend the pain, has had the wisdom to accept that very substantial Iraqi gift.

The European Banking Crisis Explained

2011-10-21T13:17:00.000-05:00

Barney Frank Blames Occupy Wall Street

2011-10-18T10:16:00.000-05:00

Did you see this segment on Rachel Maddow last night? Check it out.

I like Barney Frank, and I'm glad he said what he did. But his complaint that Occupy Wall Street (twitter feed #OWS) should have been in the trenches in 2009, and that OWS really needs to think about voting more Democrats into office in 2012 seems to overlook an important historical fact. In 2008 voters gave the Democrats commanding majorities in both houses of Congress, and they delivered Barack Obama to the White House. In 2009, Democrats assumed the opportunity, the power, and the mandate to deliver change. They overwhelmingly failed to do so.

Instead, in 2009 Frank's Democratic Party began launching a series of policy moves to extend and expand disastrous US foreign military actions along with a series of corporate-friendly domestic policies in the finance, health-care and energy sectors. Most recently, Obama has produced disastrous job-killing federal austerity budget cuts and the largest "free trade" deals since NAFTA (with three pacts to be signed by him this coming Friday). He has alienated his own environmental base to the point of having their leadership arrested at the gates of the White House, and he has overseen the expansion of constitutional infringements and government secrecy, in some cases exceeding those of the Bush era up to and including the unlawful assassination of multiple US citizens without an iota of due legal process. He has done precious little to halt a tsunami of home foreclosures sweeping the country (an estimated 800,000 foreclosures this year alone), many of them clearly involving criminal fraud by banks. Instead of forcefully protecting citizens in their troubled homes, Obama has mouthed vague rhetorical sympathies while protecting his benefactors in the megabanks.

It has been Obama's behavior, and that of the Democratic-led Congress, that caused OWS to reject party affiliation. They've been burned. In spite of being part of what should be a natural Democratic constituency, it appears that #OWS believes that neither party will serve as an effective vehicle going forward. And with this recent Democratic history fresh on our collective memory, who on earth would blame OWS for coming to this painful conclusion? Nobody, aside from Barney Frank.

I do not know what the Occupy Phenomenon is going to evolve into, or indeed if it will evolve at all. Regardless of what the future holds, they have already succeeded--they have put street-level civil action: protest, occupation, civil disobedience, back on the national political map. In my opinion, that achievement and future iterations of it may well prove more important and constructive than any electoral efforts to seat "more and better Democrats".

UPDATE (10/19/11)

Former Reagan Administration bank regulator William Black was interviewed today by Amy Goodman for the news program Democracy Now. In the interview Black (who had extensive experience with banking fraud during the Savings and Loan debacle of the 1980s) details some of the things President Obama could have done back in 2009 or 2010 (the period Frank alludes to above) to bring the fraudulent practices underlying the US banking crisis under some form of control. Obama's failure to take any regulatory action cannot be blamed on citizen apathy (Frank's complaint) or for that matter Republican resistance, as the measures discussed here by Black did not require congressional action of any kind. Black's condemnation of Obama's actions (or non-actions, in this case) illustrate why many Americans are likely to have much greater sympathy for the OWS protesters than they will for Democratic officeholders who have largely failed to act.

UPDATE (10/20/11)

A related headline from yesterday's Washington Post describes how Obama continues to raise campaign funding from the financial sector very successfully: "Obama still flush with cash from financial sector despite frosty relations"

Despite frosty relations with the titans of Wall Street, President Obama has still managed to raise far more money this year from the financial and banking sector than Mitt Romney or any other Republican presidential candidate, according to new fundraising data.

...

One top banking executive who raises money for Obama, discussing fundraising efforts on the condition of anonymity, said reports of disaffection with the president “are exaggerated and overblown.” He said a strong contingent of financiers in New York, Chicago and California remains supportive of Obama and his economic policies, even as some have turned on him. But, this donor added, “it probably helps from a political perspective if he’s not seen as a Wall Street guy.”

Yes, it's a delicate charade that must be maintained by President Obama--consuming more "frosty" Wall Street cash than any of his GOP competitors, while simultaneously attempting to harness the electoral energy of the anti-Wall Street protesters camped just outside.

"I've Got Nothing For You On That"

2011-10-02T05:22:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Jake Tapper (ABC News) for asking:

Let's face it. This administration simply doesn't get the civil liberties thing. And for any law students who were at Chicago when Obama was on the faculty there, I'd suggest you request a refund. Credit to this blog for posting this video segment.

The Pathetic Left

2011-09-04T17:46:00.000-05:00

http://www.visualthesaurus.com/

Pathetic, as in:

"For green groups, President Barack Obama’s retreat on ozone standards is another reason to question how aggressively they want to support his reelection in 2012. Even more bruising: the realization that they may not have much choice.

“We have no place else left to go but home,” said one official at a major environmental group, speaking on background Friday. “So the enviros come out looking weak once again because of today and we’re all screaming bloody murder.

“But you know what,” the official said. “At the end of the day, I don’t think the White House is unhappy to hear us complain.”

Thus the "environmental Left" is just as pitiable and pathetic as any other segment of the Left, for the same root causes:

The Left self-identifies as an abused hostage of the Democratic Party--one that has "no place else to go";
Even while "screaming bloody murder" about its abuse at the hands of the Democrats, environmentalists and other segments of the Left clearly, repeatedly and loyally state their support for the party in the next election--thus guaranteeing that the abuse continues, because of;
The Democratic leadership's calculus that they gain political benefits from kicking their base in the teeth from time to time, and that no harm will ever come to them from doing so.

Until the Left identifies some way to effectively change their own behavior, none of this will change, regardless of how many branches of Govt. the Democrats control, or who the party leadership is. This "I'm mad as hell at the Democrats but will always remain completely loyal to them" tactic is clearly not working.

Rick Perry's Climate-Science Whoppers Not Shared by Texas State Climatologist

2011-08-31T17:16:00.000-05:00

Texas Governor and GOP Presidential front-runner Rick Perry:

“I do believe that the issue of global warming has been politicized. I think there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects. I think we’re seeing it almost weekly or even daily, scientists who are coming forward and questioning the original idea that man-made global warming is what is causing the climate to change. Yes, our climates change. They’ve been changing ever since the earth was formed. But I do not buy into, that a group of scientists, who in some cases were found to be manipulating this data.”

WaPo's "FactChecker" blog quickly assessed Perry's claim on two key points--first, that climate scientists have manipulated data in order to obtain funding for research, and second, that a growing number of climate scientists are questioning the consensus of climate change. In both cases, Perry's claim earned WaPo's "four Pinocchios" category. To earn that, Perry had to go beyond the lesser sins of "shading the truth", "significant omissions and/or exaggerations", and even "significant factual error and/or obvious contradictions" (this last covered in their "three Pinocchios" category). No, Perry's four-Pinocchio fabrications were graded by the WaPo in a single word: "Whoppers".

Perhaps not surprisingly, Perry can't get any help on his claims even from his own Texas State Climatologist, a Bush appointee and Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at Texas A&M University. The scientist, John Nielson-Gammon, writes an excellent blog at the Houston Chronicle. I'm guessing neither Perry nor his staff have read it. If they had, the Governor might have a much fuller understanding of the very-real nature of anthropogenic global warming, and he also might better understand how climate science came to be so politicized:

Most scientific research is not politicized. So it hums along, with funding levels driven by scientific opportunity, agency and societal needs, and opportunities for commercialization.

Climate science is not like that. The present and recent past have seen all three possible funding consequences of the politicization of science. For the sake of argument, I’ll broad-brush Democrats as being in favor of reductions in Tyndall (greenhouse) gas emissions and Republicans as being opposed to reductions in Tyndall gas emissions.

Back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Democrats generally saw global warming as a looming problem requiring action and supported increased amounts of climate research to help pin down the magnitude of the problem and guide policy actions. Meanwhile, Republicans generally saw action to curb global warming as premature and unjustified and supported increased amounts of climate research as an excuse to delay policy actions. With strong support from both sides, climate science boomed.
The outcome of the bulk of the research to date has been to confirm global warming as a looming problem requiring action. Thus Democrats continue to support climate research, for the original reasons as well as to lend further support to policy actions. Meanwhile, Republican support for climate research has declined tremendously as most new scientific results making the news confirm the magnitude of the problem and tilt public opinion toward policy actions. Inaction is now better served by as little new science as possible.

In other words, global warming deniers had no problem with politicization of science so long as it served the purpose of delaying any form of policy change. But once 98% of the scientists involved had reached consensus that global warming was real, and that humans were a significant cause of it--only then did politicization of climate science become an objectionable issue for Perry and his fellow Republicans.

The Conversion of Osama bin Laden

2011-05-02T09:35:00.000-05:00

Neither the short- nor long-term legacy of America's killing of Osama bin Ladin are clear. Never the less, it is possible to make some fragmentary observations that I think will be relevant going forward.

In no particular order:

Put most plainly, OBL is not as important as he once was, nor is al Qaeda. This is not so much because the capabilities of AQ have been diminished (they have), but because the events of the Arab spring have eclipsed AQ, and OBL, just as they have eclipsed (to a lesser extent) US dominance/relevance in the region.

Speaking of the "Arab Spring", it is highly likely that both the US administration and OBL viewed the Arab Spring in the same light: unwanted. I think they largely shared that view.

The attempt to deny a martyrdom shrine to OBL by burying him at sea won't work. The US strike on Obama's compound was not just a killing. It was actually more of a conversion. What that conversion will be depends largely on how the US behaves in the region going forward.

For US Middle East policy, OBL's death will provide fuel for both sides of a debate: those wishing to remove the US from Iraq, Afghanistan, etc., and those wanting to stay engaged there. One side will point to the nominal mission being accomplished. The other will see it as proof that progress in our wars, occupations, and "kinetic military actions" is possible, and that we should "stay the course". Regardless, it is likely that OBL's death will be viewed as general support for the thesis that American militarism works.

Ultimately, the meaning of OBL's death and the US role in it has yet to be established. However, if there is a significant shift in US policy towards disengagement, his death will have been highly significant and beneficial to the nation he attacked on 9/11. If, on the other hand, the US continues its current policies and actions unchanged, America by its own actions will render OBL's death meaningless. After all, how important could it be if it changes nothing? Ultimately, the true meaning of the event is what the US makes of it through its own actions--not the event itself.

Hard Times

2011-04-21T13:26:00.000-05:00

Washington's bipartisan response to joblessness continues down the wrong and damaging road of austerity strategies and budget cuts.

I can't help but be reminded of Stephen Foster's classic "Hard Times Come Again No More." Written prior to the American Civil War, the song is frequently treated as a historical piece. It shouldn't be--the theme of economic despair and extreme disparities between rich and poor is once again the soundtrack to our current American economic folly. Here are two covers for this remarkable song. First, Mavis Staples.

Let us pause in life's pleasures and count its many tears,

While we all sup sorrow with the poor;

There's a song that will linger forever in our ears;

Oh Hard times come again no more.

Chorus:Tis the song, the sigh of the weary,

Hard Times, hard times, come again no more

Many days you have lingered around my cabin door;

Oh hard times come again no more.

While we seek mirth and beauty and music light and gay,

There are frail forms fainting at the door;

Though their voices are silent, their pleading looks will say

Oh hard times come again no more.

(Chorus)

There's a pale drooping maiden who toils her life away,

With a worn heart whose better days are o'er:

Though her voice would be merry, 'tis sighing all the day,

Oh hard times come again no more.

(Chorus)

Tis a sigh that is wafted across the troubled wave,

Tis a wail that is heard upon the shore

Tis a dirge that is murmured around the lowly grave

Oh hard times come again no more.

(Chorus)

Another excellent version by the supergroup composed of James Taylor, Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, and Mark O'Connor.

The Next Disappointment: Obama to Back Simpson-Bowles as Budget Debate Starter

2011-04-12T07:49:00.000-05:00

Booman: "I don't get disappointed by a whole lot because my expectations are so low."

And when the president makes budget cuts at a time when increased federal spending is one of the only ways to reduce unemployment, of course it is frustrating. But I think it shows a degree of political immaturity to not understand that the president is going to take credit for brokering a deal that both lowers the deficit and keeps the government open. The alternative wouldn't have helped unemployment either. The alternative wouldn't have prevented a lot of people from being hurt or inconvenienced.

Part of what is annoying me is that everything is being put through this prism where government spending goes in and a rainbow of awesome stuff comes out. Yes, in the particular situation we finds [sic] ourselves in, more government spending makes sense. But, as a general matter, our government spends way too much fucking money, which is why we are trillions of dollars in debt with no end in sight to the bleeding. When I hear people moaning that the president is legitimizing budget cuts, it just rubs me the wrong way.

Well yeah, if you view Obama as nothing more than "a broker"--a disinterested neutral party who's sole task is to establish an agreement between two competing sides, then he did everything he should have done. But we didn't elect Obama to be a neutral broker. And liberals didn't expect that Obama would be using the other side's talking points. We didn't expect that he'd simply abandon our own arguments and inhabit theirs. If calling out Obama and most other Democratic leaders on that point rubs Booman the wrong way, I'm very sorry about that. Get used to it.

While Booman does see the need for deficit spending now, his belief that government spends too much generally is both unsubstantiated (at least by Booman) and untimely. Now is not the time to worry about deficits. One reason liberals are angry, I think, is that there are a bunch of economists out there who strongly disagree with all the deficit kool-aid being drunk by people who should know better--including Obama and most of the current Democratic leadership. Liberal economists tend to see the deficit scam, including efforts like the Simpson-Bowles Deficit Commission, as economically harmful. Premature deficit-reduction measures, they argue, are highly damaging to an economy in which true unemployment is hanging in the vicinity of 16% or so (I haven't seen the latest U6 unemployment number but it is somewhere in that area). Instead, they see the entire deficit argument as an attack on vital socioeconomic institutions that huge numbers of Americans depend on. But such economists, like this one, either can't or won't be heard by Obama:

The Simpson-Bowles Commission, just established by the president, will no doubt deliver an attack on Social Security and Medicare dressed up in the sanctimonious rhetoric of deficit reduction. (Back in his salad days, former Senator Alan Simpson was a regular schemer to cut Social Security.) The Obama spending freeze is another symbolic sacrifice to the deficit gods. Most observers believe neither will amount to much, and one can hope that they are right. But what would be the economic consequences if they did? The answer is that a big deficit-reduction program would destroy the economy, or what remains of it, two years into the Great Crisis.

For this reason, the deficit phobia of Wall Street, the press, some economists and practically all politicians is one of the deepest dangers that we face. It's not just the old and the sick who are threatened; we all are. To cut current deficits without first rebuilding the economic engine of the private credit system is a sure path to stagnation, to a double-dip recession--even to a second Great Depression. To focus obsessively on cutting future deficits is also a path that will obstruct, not assist, what we need to do to re-establish strong growth and high employment.

...

With government, the risk of nonpayment does not exist. Government spends money (and pays interest) simply by typing numbers into a computer. Unlike private debtors, government does not need to have cash on hand. As the inspired amateur economist Warren Mosler likes to say, the person who writes Social Security checks at the Treasury does not have the phone number of the tax collector at the IRS. If you choose to pay taxes in cash, the government will give you a receipt--and shred the bills. Since it is the source of money, government can't run out.

It's true that government can spend imprudently. Too much spending, net of taxes, may lead to inflation, often via currency depreciation--though with the world in recession, that's not an immediate risk. Wasteful spending--on unnecessary military adventures, say--burns real resources. But no government can ever be forced to default on debts in a currency it controls. Public defaults happen only when governments don't control the currency in which they owe debts--as Argentina owed dollars or as Greece now (it hasn't defaulted yet) owes euros. But for true sovereigns, bankruptcy is an irrelevant concept. When Obama says, even offhand, that the United States is "out of money," he's talking nonsense--dangerous nonsense. One wonders if he believes it.

We're just hearing this morning that Obama's Wednesday economic address will be used to endorse Simpson-Bowles as a starting point in the coming budget battle.

Post-Speech UPDATE 4/13/11

Obama gave a good speech, particularly in refuting the horrid Ryan Budget non-plan. I'm not able to post, but highly recommend this excellent response to Obama's remarks.

Who Won the Budget Deal?

2011-04-09T11:59:00.000-05:00

Two weeks ago, prior to much of the budget insanity we've been subjected to, Salon's Andrew Leonard wrote a piece titled How to tell if Obama is losing the budget showdown . It was subtitled "A quick and dirty scorecard for would-be judges". I suggest we all need to be judges of what just transpired, because this showdown was not a final act. It was not "High Noon". High Noon is still in front of us. There are much more important budget battles to come, and how our leadership performs in these battles is going to impact everything, going forward. The Tea Party fully understands this. Just after the deal was cut, Lawrence O'Donnell reported that leading Tea Partiers had already called for a primary against Boehner. Their pressure on him and their House Reps. will be non-stop.

Photo: André Karwath via Wikimedia Commons

In spite of Obama's "pragmatic" rhetoric during the battle, budgets are not just about getting the mail delivered and the potholes filled. They are in fact moral documents that show what the social and political priorities of the nation are. And because there are such radical and reckless conservative views holding sway on the other side, we had better pay very close attention to how the Democratic side did. This isn't a political beauty-pageant. This stuff matters.

One thing I like about Leonard's piece (excerpt below) is that it was written prior to much of the latest manueving we've seen, and obviously long before the final decision was reached last night, by which time both sides were busily spinning how each had won the battle. Leonard posed three tracks along which the budget negotiations might travel [emphasis added]:

So here are three scenarios that could play out in the next two weeks that will allow us to score this fight.

1) The Democrats offer cuts equaling the House Leadership's original proposal, minus social policy riders. Facing a rebellion from hard-line members, House Republicans reject those cuts as insufficient and force a government shutdown.
Score: Big win for Democrats. Public perceives them as willing to compromise, while judging Republicans too extreme. This, in turn, dramatically affects ensuing fight over raising the debt ceiling, as well as negotiations on the 2012 budget and entitlements.

2) The Democrats offer cuts equaling the House Leadership's original proposal, minus social policy riders. House accepts.
Score: Win for Republicans. Speaker of the House John Boehner plays his hand perfectly, gets bigger cuts than the conventional wisdom expected originally, avoids blame for government shutdown, strengthens position for follow-up.

3) The Democrats offer cuts equaling, or exceeding, the House leadership's original proposal, plus some social policy riders. House accepts.
Score: Huge win for Republicans.

Boehner indeed got vastly more in budget cuts than he originally asked for. His original target was 30 billion in cuts. He beat that by roughly one third. The Democrats surrendered the money in (to use their term) "historic" fashion.

But what about the policy riders? How many of them were included in deal last night? Below is an incomplete listing of the riders embedded within HR.1, from OMB Watch, including brief description and location within the budget bill:

Prohibits funding for the Biomass Crop Assistance Program. Sec. 1285
Restricts the ability of the FDA to transfer funds. Sec. 1268
Prohibits the Federal Reserve from transferring more than $80 million to the new Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection. Sec. 1517
Prohibits funds for a government sponsored “consumer products complaints database.” Sec. 4046
Prohibits agencies from obligating funds in contravention of parts of the Iran Sanctions Act of 1996. Sec. 1115
Prohibits funds to take any action to effect or implement the disestablishment, closure or realignment of the US Joint Forces Command. Sec. 4020
Prohibits funds made available to the Department of Defense for official representation purposes. Sec. 4031
Bans funding for the Department of Education regulations on Gainful Employment, as-yetunpublished rules that would restrict federal student aid to for-profit colleges whose students have high debt-to-income ratios and require the schools to report more information about student outcomes. Sec. 4012
Prohibits funds for implementing a provision specific to the State of Texas in the “Education Job Fund.” Sec. 4051
Prohibits funding for the Wetlands Reserve Program. Sec. 1281
Prohibits funding for the Conservation Stewardship Program. Sec. 1282
Prohibits funding for the Watershed Protection and Flood Prevention Act. Sec. 1283
Prohibits funding for the Weatherization Assistance Program or the State Energy Program. Sec. 1434
Prohibits funding for various environmental projects in California. Sec. 1475
Prohibits funding for a climate change czar in the White House. Sec. 1535
Prohibits funding for EPA efforts to regulate greenhouse gases. Sec. 1746
Prohibits funding for the EPA to change a rule regulating water. Sec. 1747
Prohibits funding for enforcing an order by the Secretary of the Interior calling for protecting public natural spaces. Sec. 1778
Puts a moratorium, for the duration of the CR, on the payment of legal fees to citizens and groups who sue the government. Sec. 4007
Prohibits funds to implement, administer or enforce the rule entitled “National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants From the Portland Cement Manufacturing Industry and Standards of Performance for Portland Cement Plants,” published by the Environmental Protection Agency on September 9, 2010, which limits the levels of mercury in cement. Sec. 4008
Prohibits funds to the EPA’s Environmental Appeals Board to consider, review, reject remand or other invalidate any permit issued for Outer Continental Shelf sources located offshore of the States along the Arctic Coast. Sec. 4014
Defines specifically what greenhouse gases are and prohibits the EPA from imposing regulations on those gasses emitted by a stationary source for seven months. Sec. 4015
Prohibits funds to implement the Klamath (California) Dam Removal and Sedimentation Study, conducted by the US Bureau of Reclamation and the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Sec. 4028
Prohibits funds to implement or enforce the Travel Management Rule, which would close roads and trails on National Forest System land. Sec. 4029
Prohibits funds for the Department of the Interior’s Office of Surface Mining, Reclamation and Enforcement (OSM) from moving forward with a proposed rule that would effectively eliminate the Stream Buffer Zone Rule, a rule that presently allows surface mining operations with qualified permits to work within 100 feet of a stream. Sec. 4032
Prohibit EPA funding for enforcement of total maximum daily loads in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Sec. 4033
Prohibits funds for the EPA to impose and enforce federally mandated numeric Florida water quality standards. Sec. 4035
Prohibits funds from being used to construct ethanol blender pumps or ethanol storage facilities. Sec. 4037
Prohibits funds to implement a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Climate Service, part of the President’s fiscal year 2012 budget request. Sec. 4038
Prohibits the EPA, Corps of Engineers and the Office of Surface Mining from implementing coordination procedures that have served to extend and delay the review of coal mining permits. Sec. 4039
Prohibits funds from being used to develop or approve a new limited access privilege program – “catch-shares” – for any fishery under the jurisdiction of the South Atlantic, Mid-Atlantic, New England or Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council. Sec. 4040
Prohibits funds for the study of the Missouri River projects. Sec. 4041
Prohibits funds for the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Sec. 4042
Blocks funds for the EPA to implement a waiver to increase the ethanol content in gasoline from 10 percent to 15 percent. Sec. 4043
Prohibits funds for the EPA to deny proposed and active mining permits under Section 404 (c) of the Clean Water Act, specifically to revoke retroactively a permit for the Spruce Mine in West Virginia. Sec. 4044
Prohibits funds for the EPA to implement regulations to designate coal ash reside as hazardous waste. Sec. 4045
Prohibits funds for EPA to modify the national primary ambient air quality standards applicable to coarse particulate matter (dust). Sec. 4048
Restricts funds from being used for the Presidential Election Campaign Fund or political party conventions. Sec. 4004
Prohibits funding for the IRS to implement health care reform. Sec. 1516
Prohibits funds for a White House Director of Health Care reform. Sec. 1536
Prohibits the District of Columbia from using its own, non-federal funds to pay for abortions beyond the very limited circumstances in which federal funds are currently available (in circumstances of rape or incest and to save the life of a pregnant woman). Sec. 1590
Prohibits the District of Columbia from using federal funds for syringe exchange programs. Sec. 1591
Prohibits funding for sections of the Public Health Service Act. Sec. 1820
Prohibits states from using federal funds for syringe exchange programs. Sec. 1847
Prohibits funds to the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc., or any of its affiliates. Sec. 4013
Prohibits funds to pay any employee, officer or contractor to implement the provisions of the health care reform law, stopping the Department of Health and Human Services from Sec. 4016
Strips funding for any provision of the health care reform law. Sec. 4017
Prohibits the payment of salaries for any officer or employee of any federal department or agency with respect to carrying out the health care reform law. Sec. 4018
Bars funds to implement the individual mandate and penalties and reporting requirements of the health care reform law. Sec. 4019
Prohibits funds to carry out the medical loss ratio restrictions in the health care reform law. These provisions require insurers to spend at least a certain percent of their premium revenues on medical care. Sec. 4027
Blocks funds for Health Insurance Exchanges, a set of state-regulated health care plans offered under the health care reform law. Sec. 4034
Prohibits funds for employee and officer salaries at the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight at the Department of Health and Human Services, created by the health care reform law. Sec. 4047
Prohibits funds for salaries for any officer or employee of the government to issue regulations on essential benefits under section 1302 of the health care reform law. Sec. 4049
Prohibits funds for the independent payment advisory board. Sec. 4050
Prohibits transferring detainees from Guantanamo Bay. Sec. 1112
Prohibits transferring detainees from Guantanamo Bay. Sec. 1113
Prohibits constructing facilities to house detainees in Guantanamo Bay. Sec. 1114
Prohibits funding for hiring new TSA employees. Sec. 1614
Prohibits funding for immigrant integration programs. Sec. 1635
Prohibits the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives from collecting information on multiple sales of rifles or shotguns to the same person. Sec. 4030
Prohibits funding for the Sustainable Communities Initiative. Sec. 2226
Prohibits funding for capital advances or rental assistance contracts for HUD Housing for the Elderly projects. Sec. 2237
Prohibits funding for renewing tenant-based assistance contracts. Sec. 2238
Prohibits funds for the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency, State and Local Programs to provide grants under the Urban Area Security Initiative. Sec. 4002
Prohibits funding for the US Ambassador's Fund for Cultural Preservation, UN Population Fund, or for foreign NGOs that use their own non-U.S. funds to provide abortion services. Sec. 2122
Places various restrictions on Afghanistan funding. Sec. 2124
Prohibits U.S. military assistance to Chad, due to its continued use of child conscription, consistent with the Child Soldiers Prevention Act of 2007. Sec. 4011
Prohibits funds for the Overseas Comparability Pay Adjustment, an increase in pay for overseas Foreign Service Officers approved by President Obama under the supplemental appropriations Sec. 4021
Bans foreign aid to Saudi Arabia. Sec. 4023
Prohibits funds for UN construction within the US. Sec. 4036
Blocks funds for the Federal Communications Commission to institute Net Neutrality rules. Sec. 4006
Prohibits funds for the Community Connect broadband grant program administered by the Rural Utilities Service of the Department of Agriculture. Sec. 4022
Prohibits funding for competitions for new Job Corps centers. Sec. 1802
Prohibits funding for upgrading Congressional committee rooms. Sec. 1904
Prohibits funding for carrying out section 19 of the Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act. Sec. 1284
Prohibits Recovery Act funding for Department of Energy employees employed through the Recovery Act. Sec. 1474
Rescinds unobligated Recovery Act funds. Sec. 3001
Prohibits Recovery Act funds for signage. Sec. 3002
Prohibits NASA from collaborating with China. Sec. 1339
Prohibits Export-Import Bank funding for anyone subject to sanctions under the Iran Sanctions Act of 1996. Sec. 2123
Prohibits funds to provide nonrecourse marketing assistance loans to mohair farmers. Sec. 4026
Prohibits funds to pay the salaries and expenses of the following “czars,” or special presidential advisers who are not required to go through the Senate confirmation process: Obama Care Czar, Climate Change Czar, Global Warming Czar, Green Jobs Czar, Car Czar, Guantanamo Bay Closure Czar, Pay Czar and Fairness Doctrine Czar. Sec. 4009

Again, OMB-Watch reminds us that this is an incomplete listing. The vast majority of coverage has been on the dollars and a very few of the policy riders. But as can be seen above, there are a huge number of riders attached to the original bill. Which of the above were stripped out in negotiations? Which are still there? How much damage can they do, in addition to the severe cuts represented by the budget deal?

As Leonard called it two weeks ago--Huge win for the GOP, and especially for their most radical members on the Right. Huge loss for everyone else.

UPDATE

NYT has reporting in tomorrow's edition that shows at least 40 riders made it as far as last night's considerations:

Mr. Obama asked that they go through the riders one by one. A White House aide, Rob Nabors, dashed out of the Oval Office with a stack of 40 riders, and headed to a Xerox machine to print them out, “while the rest of us sat around waiting for the copies,” a senior White House official said. Mr. Boehner even joked at one point, chiding Mr. Obama about how he might want to find faster copier machines, prompting the president to mime cranking out a mimeograph.

Apparently one of them was a measure to take Montana and Idaho wolves off the Endangered Species List. Authored by Senate Democrat John Tester.

A Hopeless Left, As Obama Launches Re-election Run

2011-04-05T15:21:00.000-05:00

I recently had the lucky opportunity to attend talks by two well known and influential liberals who work in different fields--one of the many benefits of living in a town with a big university. The first of these was Lawrence Lessig, a Harvard Law Professor whose effort and concern focuses on US campaign finance reform, election reform, and the like. The second was James Galbraith, a liberal economist. Among other things, Galbraith is concerned with issues of economic equality (more specifically, the lack of it).

I'd heard or seen both speakers before, but this time I heard their talks about a month apart, in person. Galbraith's was just a couple of days ago. Both were excellent, and both were presentations that had been given before, to other audiences. Lessig has since uploaded the particular version I heard and so it is placed below. Warning: this version is just under 40 minutes long. Those wanting a shorter but equally excellent version can see it here at an earlier post on this blog (hit link and go to bottom of that post).

In his concluding unscripted remarks, Lessig posed a rather hopeless view of the money-in-politics problem. He likened our republic to a patient suffering from some horrible and fatal illness (no argument here), and admitted that in such circumstances a doctor might choose to go on treating that patient, even though there wasn't any reasonable hope for a cure. Lessig was saying that he didn't see victory or anything like it on the horizon, but is choosing to struggle on because...it is the only thing he can do. It struck me as a surprisingly pessimistic statement for a liberal leader to make in public.

Galbraith's talk focused on another problem altogether, that of economic policy and the great bank failure of '08. The talk was essentially identical to this one which he first gave about four months ago--just after the disastrous midterm elections. When first given, the piece was ambiguously-titled "Closing Remarks". A few weeks later, it bore the much sharper heading "Whose Side is the White House On?", published at New Deal 2.0. Finally, AlterNet made it personal and published the piece as "Galbraith: Whose Side is Obama On?" It is the angriest talk I have heard or read from Galbraith. Read the entire thing--it's short and absolutely non-boring. Here are some representative bits [bolding added]:

I want to raise a hard question — a question on which Americans are divided. It seems to me, though, we will get nowhere unless we realize where we are, what has actually happened, and what the future most likely holds.

Recovery begins with realism and there is nothing to be gained by kidding ourselves. On the topics that I know most about, the administration is beyond being a disappointment. It’s beyond inept, unprepared, weak, and ineffective. Four and again two years ago, the people demanded change. As a candidate, the President promised change. In foreign policy and the core economic policies, he delivered continuity instead. That was true on Afghanistan and it was and is true in economic policy, especially in respect to the banks. What we got was George W. Bush’s policies without Bush’s toughness, without his in-your-face refusal to compromise prematurely. Without what he himself calls his understanding that you do not negotiate with yourself. It’s a measure of where we are, I think, that at a meeting of Americans for Democratic Action, you find me comparing President Obama unfavorably to President George W. Bush.

...

The president deprived himself of any chance to develop a narrative from the beginning by surrounding himself with holdover appointments from the Bush and even the Clinton administrations: Secretary Geithner, Chairman Bernanke, and, since we’re here at Harvard, I’ll call him by his highest title, President Summers. These men have no commitment to the base, no commitment to the Democratic Party as a whole, no particular commitment to Barack Obama, and none to the broad objective of national economic recovery that can be detected from their actions.

With this team the President also chose to cover up economic crime. Not only has the greatest wave of financial fraud in our history gone largely uninvestigated and unpunished, the government and this administration with its stress tests (which were fakes), its relaxation of accounting standards which permitted banks to hold toxic assets on their books at far higher prices than any investor would pay, with its failure to make criminal referrals where these were clearly warranted, with its continuation in office — sometimes in acting capacities — of some of the leading non-regulators of the earlier era, has continued an ongoing active complicity in financial fraud.

...

What happens next? Let’s again not kid ourselves, we have lost a great many seats in the House of Representatives and the House of Representatives isn’t coming back into a Democratic majority in the near future. Simply because of the balance of exposures — the larger numbers of Democratic Senators exposed to reelection in the next cycle, the greatest likelihood is that the Senate will also go Republican in two years time. President Obama has set his course. He has surrounded himself with the advisers of his choice and as he moves to replace President Summers we hear from the press that the priority is to “repair the rift with his investors on Wall Street.” What does that tell you? It tells me that he does not have President Clinton’s fighting and survival instincts. I’ve not heard one good reason all day to believe that we are going to see from this White House the fight that we want, that he could win in two years, or any reason we should be backing him now.

It seems to me that we as progressives need — this is my personal position — we need to draw a line and decide that we would be better off with an under-funded, fighting progressive minority party than a party marked by obvious duplicity and constant losses on every policy front as a result of the reversals in our own leadership.

...

This isn’t a parlor game. The outcome isn’t destined to be alright. It will not necessarily end in progress whatever happens. What we do, how we proceed, and how we effectively resist what is plainly about to happen, matters very greatly for the future of our country, of our children, and of another generation to come. We need to lose our fear, our hesitation, and our unwillingness to face the facts. If we thereby lose some of our hopes, let’s remember the dictum of William of Orange that “it is not necessary to hope in order to persevere.”

So here are two internationally known and respected liberal leaders speaking within a month of each other in the same city. They both see very deep, possibly insurmountable problems in their respective areas of concern and expertise. (And it should be noted that the list of problems could easily be extended, the list of unhappy and less-than-hope-filled leaders could as well). To hear them describe the problems, the lack of government response, the slack political will, and the general hopelessness of the situation, you'd swear that they had been trapped under a government ruled by their opposition (and perhaps so). But remarkably, both of them have spent the past two years under a completely Democratic government--lock, stock and barrel. House, Senate, and Executive.

It is worth noting all this, I hope, as our current president has rolled out his reelection bid just this week. Obama's sole and entire brand his first time around was "Hope". And to some extent Liberals/Progressives shared in that, at least at first, before the seamless morphing of Candidate Obama into President Obama.

I'm not hearing any hope on the left now. Instead, its leaders (if Lessig and Galbraith are willing to be considered as such), are downplaying hope in their public statements and they're saying things like this: "It’s a measure of where we are, I think...that you find me comparing President Obama unfavorably to President George W. Bush."

Or this:

I’ve not heard one good reason...to believe that we are going to see from this White House the fight that we want, that he could win in two years, or any reason we should be backing him now.

"One Toke Over the Line" by Lawrence Welk

2011-04-02T18:21:00.000-05:00

And now for your weekend viewing pleasure here is Lawrence Welk doing "A modern spiritual", One Toke Over the Line. Commentary by Mr. Welk following the number.

Job Growth Continues Positive in March, But Do Public Sector Layoffs Threaten Longer Term

2011-04-01T13:39:00.000-05:00

Employment had respectable gains in March, with all 216,000 new jobs coming from the private sector. The growth helped to extend a continuing decline in unemployment rates--both for new unemployment claims (U3--the one typically used in media discussions on employment) and for the more comprehensive (and realistic, I think--U6) "Total and Marginally Unemployed". The two unemployment rates are now under 9 percent and 16 percent, respectively.

Here's a chart showing where we are currently on both unemployment measures (click on graph for larger, interactive version).

Reuters reporting on today's numbers includes the following:

The private sector accounted for all the new jobs in March, adding 230,000 positions after February's 240,000 increase. Government employment fell 14,000, declining for a fifth straight month as local governments let go 15,000 workers.

If public sector job loss remains at these levels, it may be that they will not threaten this very modest recovery. But it seems more likely that the worst of the public layoffs are yet to come. For example, this estimate from the Texas Legislative Budget Board for the next biennium anticipates budget-related job losses to be in excess of 271,000 jobs in the coming fiscal year, and over 335,000 lost jobs the year after that (Texas state budget is appropriated on a two year cycle). Let's pause a moment to consider these figures. If I'm reading the numbers right, we're talking about just over 600,000 jobs lost through public budget cuts in just one state over the next two years. That's an averaged job loss of 25,000 per month for the next two years in Texas alone (the actual losses will of course not be so evenly distributed). Of this total, it appears that over 340,000 public jobs would be lost directly from budget cuts, with the remaining 260K losses coming indirectly, as the impact ripples through the larger state economy. For more on the Texas situation, here's one of several good articles from the Texas Tribune.

So looking forward, one question is whether the modest job growth occurring exclusively in the private sector right now can withstand what may be a pretty substantial wave of public layoffs at the state and local level. Wonder how the above might impact the 2012 election cycle...

Lawrence O'Donnell, Rand Paul, and Constitutional Pretzel Logic on Libya

2011-03-31T11:12:00.000-05:00

Last night Lawrence O'Donnell practiced an amazing bit of constitutional pretzel logic. He fiercely (and rightfully) assailed one Republican lawmaker (Eric Cantor) for completely failing Constitution 101. Cantor had made this completely buffoonish statement that a house bill would become law even without passage of the required senate companion bill, or the president's signature. Only God knows what the hell Cantor thought he was talking about. It was the lowest of low-hanging fruit for O'Donnell, but was an amusing segment and made for fun television.

But O'Donnell then jumped into constitutional fantasy-land himself in an attack on Republican Senator Rand Paul. Paul is arguing that Obama's Libya military aggression lacks congressional authorization and is thus unconstitutional. Congress has weighed in on this issue before, with the War Powers Resolution:

(c) Presidential executive power as Commander-in-Chief; limitation

The constitutional powers of the President as Commander-in-Chief to introduce United States Armed Forces into hostilities, or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances, are exercised only pursuant to

(1) a declaration of war,
(2) specific statutory authorization, or
(3) a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces.

Paul's position, when viewed through the plain wording of the constitution and the War Powers Resolution is certainly reasonble. O'Donnell responded to it last night by attacking Paul via Senate Resolution 85, which passed on March 1st by unanimous consent. O'Donnell seems to think S. Res. 85 provides some form of congressional authorization for Obama's action in Libya. It just doesn't. It does nothing of the kind.

First, here's O'Donnell's segment:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Now, here is the Senate's own summary of what its bill actually does (bullets added):

Applauds the courage of the Libyan people in standing up against the dictatorship of Muammar Gadhafi and for demanding democratic reforms and respect for human and civil rights.
Condemns systematic violations of human rights in Libya, including attacks on protesters demanding democratic reforms.
Calls on Muammar Gadhafi to desist from further violence, recognize the Libyan people's demand for democratic change, resign his position, and permit a peaceful transition to democracy.
Welcomes the vote of the U.N. Security Council on resolution 1970 referring the situation in Libya to the International Criminal Court (ICC), imposing an arms embargo on the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, freezing Gadhafi family assets, and banning international travel by Gadhafi, members of his family, and senior advisors.
Urges: (1) the Gadhafi regime to abide by Security Council Resolution 1970, and (2) the Security Council to take such further action to protect civilians in Libya from attack, including the possible imposition of a no-fly zone over Libyan territory.
Welcomes: (1) the African Union's (AU) condemnation of the disproportionate use of force in Libya and urges the AU to take action to address the human rights crisis in Libya, (2) the United Nations Human Rights Council's (UNHRC) decision to recommend Libya's suspension from the Council and urges the U.N. General Assembly to vote to suspend Libya's rights of Council, (3) Secretary of State Clinton's attendance at the UNHRC meeting in Geneva and urges the Council's assumption of a country mandate for Libya that employs a Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Libya, and (4) U.S. outreach to Libyan opposition figures in support of an orderly transition to a democratic government in Libya.

Nowhere does this bill authorize or direct the US President to do anything militarily. Yes, it does encourage the UN Security council to find ways to protect Libyan civilians. No, it doesn't authorize the President to do so with US military forces.

If O'Donnell has any questions or doubts about this, he should contact any of S. Res. 85's sponsors or their staffers, and ask them if the resolution in any way comprises Congressional authorization for Libya. That would actually be useful reporting.

I dare you, Lawrence. There's got to be more to a MSNBC news gig than comical low-hanging Cantor-fruit in one hand, and partisan hackery on the other. By all means defend Obama's action if you want, but please bring a better game than this.

UPDATE

If this would be of any help to O'Donnell, here's what Secretary of Defense Robert Gates offered, in response to somewhat warm Congressional questioning about whether Obama's Libya involvement complied with constitutional requirements:

Several times during the hearing Gates repeated a one-line defense of Obama's actions.
"The President's compliance with the War Powers Act has been consistent with the actions taken by all of his predecessors -- both Democrats and Republicans" since the law was passed in 1973, Gates said.

In plainer words, Gates proposes that this administration is no more guilty of being out of constitutional compliance than previous ones. That is no defense at all. O'Donnell might want to bear in mind that Rand Paul was not at this House committee hearing, and that the questions came from both Democrats and Republicans.

UPDATE 2 (4/1/11)

O'Donnell revisited this story again this evening. All I can say is that he is becoming slightly deranged on this topic. Here's a good post on this from Andrew Sullivan.

The Triumph of Sanctimonious Democratic Purists in Wisconsin

2011-03-29T13:01:00.000-05:00

Andrew Kroll has an interesting piece out just now in Mother Jones about the huge spike in fundraising by Wisconsin Democrats in the past two months ("The War in Wisconsin=Big $ Cash for Democrats"). Kroll reports that Democrats have raised more (1.4 million) in the seven weeks between Feb. 1 and March 21 than they did in all of 2010. So let's see. At their current rate, Democratic fundraising is on pace to outstrip last year's performance by roughly 1000%, an order of magnitude.

As Kroll explains, the Democrats have raised funds on different aspects of the remarkable Wisconsin story as it has evolved--when the 14 state Democratic senators left the state to prevent Walker's 'budget reform bill', they fundraised on that. After the senators returned, the Democratic party has continued to successfully fundraise off the active recall program that seeks to unseat a number of their GOP colleagues.

It's obvious that the Democratic base both inside and outside Wisconsin is fired up and contributing heavily. But it should also be stressed that this tsunami of money and highly motivated volunteers has materialized because these Democratic officeholders have found their base and bound themselves tightly to it.

Imagine for a moment what would have happened had the Wisconsin 14 and their Democratic colleagues in the state assembly acted differently than they did. What if, instead of joining tightly with their desparately protesting base in the capitol, they had responded to the growing protests with something like the following:

Now, we know that people are upset with the Governor's budget. We don't like it either, and we've fought it as hard as we can. We simply don't have the numbers. We know our Wisconsin constituents may get angry with us for giving up, but we're just facing reality. And if our constituents don't like that, and get angry with us for giving in,"if that's the standard by which we are measuring success or core principles, then let's face it, we will never get anything done. People will have the satisfaction of having a purist position, and no victories for the American people. And we will be able to feel good about ourselves, and sanctimonious about how pure our intentions are and how tough we are. ... That can't be the measure of how we think about our public service. That can't be the measure of what it means to be a Democrat."

Obama scolds his base after his extension of the Bush tax cuts.

The Wisconsin Democrats could have said something like that. And in fact the italicized text above was taken verbatim from an Obama press conference in which he lashed out at his own base when they criticized his surrender on the Bush tax cuts, as he had previously surrendered on healthcare. Ironically, the Wisconsin Democrats were, in part, fighting a similar tax-cuts-for-the-rich move by Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. Obama and Walker have that much in common. So the Wisconsinites could have done that--could have criticized their base for being unrealistic and unreasonable, called it a day, and gone home. But had they done that, they would right now be consumed with worry about future electoral losses, beset with fundraising difficulties, and pondering how to motivate an angry, dispirited and resentful base.

But thank God they didn't do any of that. Instead, they did something truly remarkable for Democrats: they stuck with their base in a way that has seldom--if ever--been matched in my lifetime. They actually listened to their own people, and aligned their political actions with the interests of their own base. And now they're reaping just the initial bountiful rewards from doing so.

National Democratic strategists view what the Wisconsin Democrats did as crazy. There's one strategist, just south of Madison right now in Chicago, who called this kind of thing "fucking retarded". Maybe the strategists should take a look at these numbers coming in from Wisconsin, and rethink their approach. Maybe there's a future in this "listen to your base" nonsense.

President-Elect Barack Obama on Bradley Manning

2011-03-29T06:05:00.000-05:00

For those involved in the Bradley Manning fight, I hope you know that you once had a friend in Barack Obama. Back in those heady days when Candidate Obama was morphing into President Obama, this is what he promised:

"Protect Whistleblowers: Often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government is an existing government employee committed to public integrity and willing to speak out. Such acts of courage and patriotism, which can sometimes save lives and often save taxpayer dollars, should be encouraged rather than stifled. We need to empower federal employees as watchdogs of wrongdoing and partners in performance. Barack Obama will strengthen whistleblower laws to protect federal workers who expose waste, fraud, and abuse of authority in government. Obama will ensure that federal agencies expedite the process for reviewing whistleblower claims and whistleblowers have full access to courts and due process."

Yes, thank you very much. Ancient history, I know. The transition has indeed ended, and the administration has taken over. Never look back.

Juan Cole, US Intervention in Libya, and the Left's Constitutional Myopia

2011-03-27T14:30:00.000-05:00

I'm amazed (and admittedly frustrated) that people like Juan Cole and Digby can so blithely ignore constitutional process in this country. I have already discussed Digby's startling disregard for constitutional process here. Today, Juan Cole has offered an "Open Letter to the Left" in which he lays out his support for the Libyan invasion, and includes a summary of how the Left has been split by the military action there. Nowhere in his synthesis does Cole observe the simple fact that the Libyan military action by US forces is an Article I violation and is in violation of the War Powers Act. Nowhere in his letter does he admit that this might be a basis--to any extent--for some on the Left to be critical of our role in the current conflict.

I perceive a double-standard at play here. We on the Left love constitutions. Everyone should have one. But we can't be bothered with our own. This view is illustrated to some extent by Cole, but it goes much wider than him. Cole's most recent posts covering North Africa and the Middle East have been loaded with references to a recurring, universal demand by populations throughout the region, namely new constitutions or substantially reformed constitutions and constitutional processes-- specifically:

"The Arab crowds are investing their hopes in a new era of parliamentarism, in elections and constitutions, in term limits and referendums, in the rule of law and the principle that governmental authority must derive from the people."

Jordan:

"Some 6000 protesters marched in Jordan on Friday. They said they wanted to transform the Jordanian monarchy into a European-style, constitutional monarchy and to return to an unamended 1952 constitution."

Morocco:

"Thousands came into the streets of Casablanca on Sunday to put pressure on the king to follow through on his pledges. But the crowds added another demand, of a new constitution to be approved by the people."

Bahrain:

"Michael Hudson surveys the wreckage in Bahrain, where the Shiite majority had demanded constitutional reforms in aid of popular sovereignty from the Sunni monarchy, but got imported Saudi Wahhabi troops instead."

Egypt:

"The government has appointed respected jurist Tareq al-Bishri to head a committee charged with amending the 1973 constitution, which had been subject to large numbers of changes that benefited the ruling National Democratic Party. "

So Cole's own coverage of the "Arab Spring" is saturated with references to the clear, unambiguous popular demands for constitutional reforms and, importantly, reforms of constitutional process (parliamentarism). I am assuming that Cole and many on The Left approve of these popular demands, and agree with them. I certainly do. It appears that the people participating in the massive popular uprisings throughout the Arab world have realized that national constitutions and that the processes laid out within them have real, life-and-death impact. They realize something that many in the US may have forgotten-- that constitutions are neither quaint, nor unimportant, nor ceremonial. They are in fact absolutely critical.

Particularly critical here in the US. I hope most on The Left would agree that we have a war problem in this country. We get into them for the wrong reasons. We have too many of them. They have lasted too long. We also share the understanding that war presents a permanent, systemic and existential threat to republics of the type we currently live in. This has been well understood for a time longer than we have existed as a nation.

And yet in spite of all that, we've invaded yet another country in total violation of our own law. Those arguing in favor of our Libyan invasion should, at the very least, acknowledge that our presence there is not legal. They should also attempt to explain how any possible benefits from our involvement there can compensate us for the constitutional failure that has occurred here at home.

US Government Develops "Panic Button" Software to Protect Activists from "Repressive Governments"

2011-03-25T17:58:00.000-05:00

This is a good one, from Reuters:

Hillary Clinton, protector of cellphone privacy.
US develops 'panic button' for democracy activists
by Andrew Quinn

WASHINGTON, March 25 (Reuters) - Some day soon, when pro-democracy campaigners have their cellphones confiscated by police, they'll be able to hit the "panic button" -- a special app that will both wipe out the phone's address book and emit emergency alerts to other activists.
The panic button is one of the new technologies the U.S. State Department is promoting to equip pro-democracy activists in countries ranging from the Middle East to China with the tools to fight back against repressive governments...

The United States had budgeted some $50 million since 2008 to promote new technologies for social activists, focusing both on "circumvention" technology to help them work around government-imposed firewalls and on new strategies to protect their own communications and data from government intrusion.

So glad that the US government is doing this. I wonder if this critical information has gotten out to the democracy activists habitually being delayed, harrassed and having their communications gear searched and/or confiscated illegally. There have been some serious difficulties in this regard with repressive government behavior (from boingboing):

Wikileaks volunteer detained
by Rob Beschizza

A volunteer for Wikileaks was detained by officials Thursday while entering the country at Newark International Airport.
Jacob Appelbaum, noted for his work with the Tor online security project, was searched and "interrogated" for three hours before being released, according to a source who asked to remain anonymous...

According to the source, Appelbaum was stopped by customs officials and spoken to for at least three hours by a team that included a U.S. Army investigator. Army Pvt. Bradley Manning was named last week as a possible Wikileaks source in relation to the classified logs.
Appelbaum's interviewers demanded that he decrypt his laptop and other computer equipment, the source said. After his refusal to do so, they confiscated it, including three cellphones. The laptop was returned, apparently because it contained no storage drive that investigators could examine. He was also asked about his role in Wikileaks and informed that he was under surveillance.

Here's another case (from cnet) that the State Department might want to investigate. They really need to help this guy out:

Security researcher: I keep getting detained by feds
by Elinor Mills

A security researcher who specializes in online privacy had his laptop and cell phones temporarily seized after returning to the U.S. on an international flight last night. Moxie Marlinspike told CNET in an interview today that he had been detained and questioned after an international flight last week and appears to be on a federal "watch list" for domestic flights too but doesn't know why.

Last week, while he had fallen asleep waiting at an airport gate in Frankfurt airport on a layover, a man who said he was from the U.S. consulate and who had a photo of Marlinspike on his cell phone approached him and asked him where he had been, Marlinspike said. Marlinspike told him that he had given a presentation at the Black Hat security show in Abu Dhabi and the man said he had to make a phone call to Washington, D.C. and then let him go a few minutes later, according to Marlinspike.

On Monday, Marlinspike had gone through the security check point and secondary screening and was seated on a plane at John F. Kennedy International Airport for the flight to the Dominican Republic, he said. As airline workers were preparing to shut the plane door, a TSA agent ran onto the plane and escorted Marlinspike off, he said. In the walkway that leads to the plane, two agents patted him down before allowing him to get back on the plane, he said.

Returning from that trip yesterday, Marlinspike said he was met by two Customs and Border Patrol agents at JFK. With a photo of him in hand, they escorted him into a detention area and took his computer and phones away for inspection before returning them and letting him go nearly five hours later, he said.

His laptop is encrypted and the text messages and call history on his phones are encrypted. He declined to provide his password when agents asked him for it

Tons of other examples of repressive government behavior that Secretary Clinton--unrelenting champion of freedom--might want to take a look at. I think she'll find that she doesn't have to look too far from home to find it.

Constitutional Process Matters, Except When Digby Knows Better

2011-03-22T18:57:00.000-05:00

Digby:

People keep asking me if I support Dennis Kucinich's call to impeach Obama for failing to get congressional authorization for the operation in Libya. Actually no, and not because Obama swears [sic] my team jersey. It's because I know that if he had gone to the congress to get authorization he would have gotten it, so the whole question seems a little bit irrelevant. They always do. Sometimes it's by acclamation as it was with Afghanistan or it's a little bit tougher as it was in Gulf War I. But the congress is not going to deny the president his prerogative to make war. Certainly, the Senate isn't going to do it --- they all look in the mirror every morning and see a future president and they want to be able to make their own wars when the time comes.

All this talk about process obscures the real question of whether or not we should have intervened in Libya and I have little doubt that if the great debate everyone thinks should have happened had happened, it wouldn't have changed the outcome one bit except to give the imprimatur of congress to the administration's decision. So, that's a big whatever. Process matters, but in this case, it's only barely relevant to the real question before us.

Regardless of Digby's prophetic powers, I would have preferred that my congressman have his say on the floor. I think he might well have spoken against it. And I'd like to have given any senator a chance to do a "Bernie Sanders" for a few hours on CSPAN. Who knows? Some grandstanding Senator might have pushed the hour late enough that ~~France~~ Sarkozy would have jumped into Libya without us. In spite of Digby's impressive claim to be able to foretell the future, I'd rather have played that particular game out. You just never know. A little time in debate might make a big difference.

And even if her prophetic powers were spot-on and the war was indeed inevitable, the result of that congressional debate is not the point. The outcome of the vote is--to use her term--irrelevant. The important thing and the entire point is that our representatives in the House and Senate get to have their say, and the debate happens. Especially about war, and especially now.

Ah, well. I need to get accustomed to people who find some constitutional process or other to be outmoded, quaint, unimportant, or as described above, "irrelevant". And I guess I pretty much am used to it. But sometimes, when that sentiment comes out of some unexpected direction, it still surprises, saddens me.

Fareed Zakaria's Call for US Intervention in Libya

2011-03-19T16:51:00.000-05:00

"If there is one lesson for U.S. foreign policy from the past 10 years" Fareed Zakaria recently wrote, "it is surely that military intervention can seem simple but is in fact a complex affair with the potential for unintended consequences."

Zakaria's article, "The Libyan Conundrum" appears to take precious little time to consider those possible consequences. Instead, he uses the essay to urge Obama to take aggressive action. Left on its own, Zakaria argued, the Libyan opposition might well turn into an al Qaeda "area of strength." His reasoning behind why Libya would be more or less vulnerable to al Qaeda influence than a host of other relevant countries including Tunisia, Sudan, Egypt, Yemen or Bahrain is not provided.

Zakaria should be familiar with unintended consequences. Here he is in 2003, just prior to the Iraq War, in an article sometimes cited as evidence of his journalistic "willingness to call out our government's missteps in Iraq:"

"In one respect, I believe that the Bush administration is right: this war will look better when it is over. The military campaign will probably be less difficult than many of Washington's opponents think. Most important, it will reveal the nature of Saddam's barbarous regime. Prisoners and political dissidents will tell stories of atrocities. Horrific documents will come to light. Weapons of mass destruction will be found. If done right, years from now people will remember above all that America helped rid Iraq of a totalitarian dictator."

All the above indeed did come to light, except for the WMDs of course. But Zakaria expected those revelations to stem from Sadam's abuses. Instead, they were our own, and are now too numerous, persistent and diverse to quantify. Indeed, Nir Rosen recently guessed that the mountains of dead from our Iraq "missteps" will likely never be adequately documented.

But how about Zakaria's missteps? If the US government can be fairly accused of screwing up Iraq beyond all recognition (which few would dispute), how can we possibly decouple that same damning assessment from journalists like Fareed Zakaria, who justified and approved that war? And above all else, how can the American public and American policymakers continue to listen to pundits like Zakaria without remembering how badly wrong they were last time, just a few short years ago?

UPDATE

Probably the first significant unintended consequence:

CAIRO - The Arab League on Sunday criticized Western military strikes on Libya, a week after urging the United Nations to slap a no-fly zone on the oil-rich North African state.
"What has happened in Libya differs from the goal of imposing a no-fly zone and what we want is the protection of civilians and not bombing other civilians," Arab League secretary general Amr Mussa told reporters.

If the US military intervention in Libya was supposed to help close old wounds between the US and Arab countries (as Zakaria claims), today's negative comment by the Arab League is not the best start.

UPDATE 3/22/11

Another account of an unintended (but entirely predictable) event of the kind that quickly turns American liberating heroes into villains in the view of those nations we invade:

During a helicopter rescue of one of the pilots that crashed in in Libya, U.S. Marines shot and injured six villagers, according to The Telegraph's Rob Crilly. Crilly, who broke the news of a crashed plane, said six civilians were injured in a botched rescue of the second pilot. There are no details yet as to why shots were fired.

Six more unintended consequences that Fareed Zakaria can tuck under his belt.

Requiem for Japan

2011-03-14T12:03:00.000-05:00

Requiem, by Eliza Gilkyson

(written following the deadly Pacific/Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004)

mother mary, full of grace, awaken

all our homes are gone, our loved ones taken

taken by the sea

mother mary, calm our fears, have mercy

drowning in a sea of tears, have mercy

hear our mournful plea

our world has been shaken

we wander our homelands forsaken

in the dark night of the soul

bring some comfort to us all

oh mother mary come and carry us in your embrace

that our sorrows may be faced

mary, fill the glass to overflowing

illuminate the path where we are going

have mercy on us all

in funeral fires burning

each flame to your mystery returning

in the dark night of the soul

your shattered dreamers, make them whole,

oh mother mary find us where we've fallen out of grace

lead us to a higher place

in the dark night of the soul

our broken hearts you can make whole

oh mother mary come and carry us in your embrace

let us see your gentle face, mary

Unemployment: Don't Uncork the Champagne Just Yet

2011-03-05T11:39:00.000-06:00

Unemployment, we're told, just dropped below the 9 percent rate for the first time since...forever. I think the drop nationwide was one tenth of one percent. Good news, for sure:

From BusinessWeek:

Factories added 33,000 jobs. Education and health care added 40,000 positions. Professional and businesses services added 47,000. Leisure and hospitality added 21,000 jobs. Construction companies, 33,000 jobs -- although a good chunk of those reflected people coming back on payrolls after January's harsh winter weather; Transportation and warehousing added 22,000 jobs.

But don't put your party hats on quite yet. The actual unemployment rate, including those out of work for over six months or more, those who have given up hope, those who may have taken part-time work while trying to get back in the workforce--when one includes these workers--the true unemployment rate has been in the vicinity of 17%.

It's unclear to me what the trend will be going forward. The private sector appears to be showing some willingness to hire, but we're also facing a wave of public-sector job losses in coming months--with states like Wisconsin and Ohio simply being the poster children. The losses are going to be nationwide, and they will be painful. As state and local governments finalize budgets and shed workers, the fallout may well swamp this very weak private-sector growth we're beginning to see.

To get a better view of what US unemployment actually looks like, the graph below (click on graph for full interactive view) tracks both the commonly used short-term unemployment figure (the 'rose-tinted glasses' view) vs. true, total unemployment/underemployment, from 1995 through 2010, including two officially-recognized recessions. To repeat--I don't see anything worth celebrating here, expecially given what we're already seeing on the public employment front.

Governor Scott Walker, The Koch Brothers and The New Normal

2011-02-26T14:04:00.000-06:00

I don't think it is possible to overstate the importance of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's phone conversation with a man he thought was his out-of-state billionaire sponsor. There are many instructive aspects of that call that people have or will call attention to. But here, I first want to simply focus on the simple fact that while many of his own constituents and publicly-elected opponents were unable to get him on the phone, unable to truly discuss issues and perhaps arrive at solutions--while none of that could be done, Walker had all the time in the world for a billionaire supporter who lived in another state.

Madison protest sign 2/26/11. Photo courtesy Melissa Ryan

We should thank Governor Walker for giving us such a blatant example of the corrosive and corrupting power of money in politics, an example that is being used against him most effectively (photo) outside his office window right now.

But it is dangerous and misleading to focus overly-much on the elected official who got caught this time. People like Walker--and the man he thought he was speaking to--are simply giving us a brief view of The New Normal--corruption that finds willing hosts in both parties and at all levels of government. They're giving us a glimpse at the corrupt process that has killed our republic and left the rest of us clambering over its dead body with hand-lettered signs made out of old pizza boxes.

Listen to Lawrence Lessig:

Where is the Democratic Governors Association in the Wisconsin Fight?

2011-02-25T09:13:00.000-06:00

The Republican Governor's Association has been all over the Wisconsin Labor Union Battle. Even before all this boiled up, the RGA did a massive ad buy supporting candidate Scott Walker, and directly contributed a huge amont to Walker's campaign. The RGA has remained fully engaged in the battle, most recently ginning up a "Stand With Scott" website, complete with suggested Twitter hashtag and quotes from leading Republican Governors supporting Walker. Here's the quote from GOP Governor Butch Otter of Idaho:

"For too long, elected leaders like Governor Walker, who are responsible and accountable to our citizens, have been virtually held hostage by the outdated and costly demands of public employees' unions. We live in a republic, and there is room for all voices to be heard – within the context of an open public process, not in the context of entitlement-driven protests, work stoppages and disruption of the people's business."

By which it appears that Butch Otter thinks that public voices should be heard, except for labor unions.

Obama's counter-message to the RGA has been fairly typical for him--weak and non-committal. I really don't understand why--it seems counterintuitive and directly against his own political interests (not to mention against those of his "base").

But at least Obama has said something. The Democratic Governor's Association--a group that one might assume has opposing or at least differing views from the RGA--has been completely silent. To my knowledge, DGA Chair Martin O'Malley has issued nothing on the subject. And a quick visit to the DGA website shows that the DGA has absolutely nothing to say on the Wisconsin battle that has been raging for well over a week, and nothing to say about unions or public employees. The words simply do not appear anywhere on the site.

Nothing.

So where are our Democratic Governors on this issue? Why the complete silence from DGA? Are they in disarray from the shellacking they took a few months back? Are they simply unaware that an important part of their base is under attack? Do they think the battle is unimportant? Do they actually agree with their Republican counterparts that public unions are bad, but don't want to publicly say so? Has national Democratic leadership become so bland, cowardly and ineffective that it is simply unable to muster any form of counter argument to the Republicans?

I honestly don't know the answer.

Update:

To his credit, here is O'Malley in a recent CNBC segment in which he does (in response to questions) respond to the public union issue. He actually does make some good points here. However, he is not identified as DGA chair, doesn't speak for the DGA, and my point remains that the DGA has been completely silent on the issue, as have the vast majority of Democratic leaders...

Wisconsin Law Enforcement Union: "Tragic Mistake to Endorse Walker"

2011-02-20T16:56:00.000-06:00

One of the remarkable parts of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's stalled union-busting bill is its selectivity. The bill does not attempt to break all public unions in the state, but rather focuses on those that failed to support him. As Ezra Klein observes, "...note that not all public-employee unions are covered by Walker's proposal: the more conservative public-safety unions -- notably police and firefighters, many of whom endorsed Walker -- are exempt".

The chaos caused by Walker's bill is clearly evidenced in this posting on the WLEA (Wisconsin Law Enforcement Association) website. The posting was apparently made four days ago, on Feb. 16, but I saw no mention of it until today. The statement includes WLEA's analysis of the bill as well as a strongly worded statement from WLEA's president, Tracy Fuller. It should be read in full, but here is an extended piece of it:

I don’t believe that the Troopers Association could have possibly predicted, or comprehended the events that are unfolding in front of us at this time. I can agree that it was a tragic mistake for the Trooper’s Association to endorse the Governor, I can’t do anything about it, and they are reaping the benefits of their actions. I do believe they thought any benefits gained would be for all of the members of WLEA, after all, the PCO’s, Field Agents, Capitol Police, and U.W. Police are all in the same union.

Who could have possibly thought that the Governor could pluck one local’s members from a union and identify it as being worthy of bargaining for a contract? Some of the comments and attitudes that have been made and displayed would have you believe that the Governor consulted with the board of the Trooper’s Association about what his plans were in all of this.

...

Everyone is in the same boat, just like the slaves. Perceived benefits are not benefits they are just perceptions. Slave owners loved the contention between the field slaves and the house slaves because they never had to worry about the two groups consorting with each other. House slaves would kill field slaves for talking about escaping the plantation.

Are we like the slaves, in that we can’t really see that we are all the same in Governor’s eyes, and he only sees us as things that fulfill his purpose of turning the state employees into workers on the big plantation, with no rules other than those conjured up by the overseers as the event occurs?

Do we really see one as being better than the other because of what we think the perception of the Governor is regarding any of us? This is a ridiculous mindset we are in the process of developing as we enter into this holocaustic era. Many of us are committing career suicide at the prospect of losing what we all have worked for; in the end we will have helped the Governor get rid of Currently Employed Unionized State Workers, which is his ultimate goal. Acting the way we are helps destroy our Union, which is his ultimate goal. Acting the way we are right now helps him kill us all, without doing much of anything other than talk about it. Everyone is threatened.

It's just a remarkable statement from a union that had been counted (until now) as a supporter of Walker's. Not an expert here, but I think when your political support starts referring to you as "the plantation owner", you might just have a bit of a problem.

Probably a good thing Walker alerted the Wisconsin Guard to be ready to step in, in case things went sour. By the time this is over, they may be the only friends he has left.

UPDATE

The remarkable statement by WLEA’s Executive Board President Tracy Fuller excerpted and linked above may have been a little too remarkable--it's been removed from their website. I have not been able to retrieve any cached versions showing his original text. If any, more tech-savvy folks can locate a cached version of his extended original statement, please let me know in comments, or tweet @Casual_Obs.

Update 2

Over at FDL, ubetchaiam notes that Fuller has since spoken with Raw Story and has substantially softened his stance and claims he was speaking only for himself–not the union he leads. Perhaps there's been some pressure applied. Even with this walk-back, the meaning of his original statement seems pretty clear regarding Gov. Walker.

Update 3

over at FDL, sailcat has found what appears to be Fuller's entire original statement.

By His Own Definition, Governor Walker Is a Bully

2011-02-18T14:16:00.000-06:00

It is an indelible hallmark of the conservative species that even as they relentlessly beat the crap out of their victims, they whimper about being helpless victims themselves. The case of Governor Scott Walker provides another great example. The story begins here...

Gov. Scott Walker says he is confident state workers will continue to show up for work and do their jobs, despite their potential disappointment in his emergency budget proposal.
However, if there is worker unrest, Walker says the Wisconsin National Guard is prepared to respond…The governor says he’s briefed the National Guard and other state agencies, to prepare them for any problems with workers, as they learn of Walker’s emergency budget plan.

So said Governor Walker to Milwaukee Public Radio as he unveiled his attack on collective bargaining rights for public employees in Wisconsin. But I want to emphasize a point here--note that Walker’s threat of using the National Guard --the National Guard!-- came before any reaction from Wisconsin’s public employees—and certainly before any signs of “unrest” (which have never materialized). It is important to be very clear about this: Walker’s completely unprovoked and aggressive threat to deploy the Wisconsin Guard came before most public employees had heard any specifics about the radical nature of his "budget repair bill."

It is important to emphasize this because of Walker’s later claim that he and other Republicans would not be “bullied” on this issue:

If anything, I think it's [public protest against his bill] made the Republicans in the Assembly and the Senate stronger. They're not going to be bullied. They're not going to be intimidated.

So let's get this straight--Governor Walker is attempting to ram a bill through special session, in one week, in order to strip long-held legal rights from his own employees, while at the same time threatening those employees with the National Guard. This is how Governor Walker and his partners are standing up to the bullies. Many of whom are school teachers and their students.

Perhaps Governor Walker needs to read his own definition on exactly what a bully is. According to Walker's own guidelines--guidelines issued by the State of Wisconsin and issued to the same public school districts he is currently threatening with the National Guard--he’s the bully. From the “Bullying Prevention Policy Guidelines” issued by Wisconsin’s Department of Public Instruction:

Definition

Bullying includes aggressive or hostile behavior that is intentional and involves an imbalance of power between the bully and the bullied. It is typically repeated over time. Bullying takes many forms, including, but not limited to, physical or verbal assaults, nonverbal or emotional threats or intimidation, social exclusion and isolation, extortion, and the use of a computer or telecommunications to send embarrassing, slanderous, threatening, or intimidating messages.
Bullying is a form of victimization and is not necessarily a result of or part of an ongoing
conflict.

So who's the bully, and who the victim? Who has the power in this story, and who doesn't? Is it the Governor with the huge legislative majority and the explicit threat of National Guard deployment, or is it his employees and their students, walking with hand-lettered signs out in the cold mid-February snow of Madison Wisconsin? I think the answer is pretty clear to any human being.

Bullying can be a problem in some Wisconsin schools, just as it is in schools across the country. But it's especially serious when the bully and his gang run the whole state.

Egypt Envy

2011-02-13T13:06:00.000-06:00

Like many others, I’ve been riveted by Egypt in recent days. The incredible, impossible, triumphant first step by the Egyptian people has been something that no American liberal could resist. What made the unfolding story so much more immediate to American liberals (or this one, at least) was the official American reaction to the stirrings of actual Egyptian democracy. After years of cheerleading a comfortably theoretical concept of democracy in the Middle East (and killing hundreds of thousands in the process), Americans witnessed an administration that displayed every appearance of confusion, internal conflict, incoherence. A series of high-level statements from Obama and Clinton said only one thing with any clarity: “We’re all for democracy,” they said. “but whatever democratic changes are needed to get a lid back in place on this country, we want the dictator to make them.”

Friday of Departure, Tahrir Square. Photo my Mona sosh. Wikimedia Commons.

And so the US administration supported Egyptian democracy with the vaguest of rhetoric, while doing everything possible to uphold their man Mubarak over the Egyptian people. And they continued doing so until Mubarak’s rejection became so obvious that even the US media saw it. With Mubarak exposed and broken, Obama suggested Suleiman, a trusted US partner and infamous torturer. It only took a few hours for it to become obvious that that pathetic dog wouldn’t hunt, with the result that the US administration had only one place left to go--the Egyptian Army. Thus ended a truly embarrassing display of ineffective, reactive and incoherent moves by this administration in which it tried to simultaneously identify with the Egyptian people while also asserting that the dictatorship oppressing them was legitimate.

For me, the Egyptian story (and the

reaction to it) is compelling on a number of levels. One of these is how Obama’s behavior in the Egyptian crisis so consistently mirrors his actions in our own recent domestic disasters. In issues like the healthcare debacle or the financial meltdown, Obama’s unswerving approach has been to secretly uphold the status-quo and avoid meaningful change, while hiding behind a rhetorical façade that, like his presidential campaign did, celebrates just the opposite. And he has done this not because anyone seriously believes that our solutions lay in preservation of the status quo, but rather because those who actually rule the US need and demand it.

The fact that Obama has been effective in smothering any meaningful change in the US but has at least partially failed to do so in Egypt may have produced some Egypt-envy in the American Left. I began wondering about this yesterday, when a curt comment to liberals was bounced around the twitterverse:

“Dear liberals: Stop trying to hijack the Egyptian revolution. You supported the dictator for 30 years. Time to shut up.”

While at first this comment seemed misdirected, counterproductive and mean-spirited to me, I began wondering whether many Arab activists might be getting a steady stream of ‘helpful ideas’ from admiring Americans (and others), and might be growing a bit tired of it. (But this is just one possible opinion among Arab activists: see for example Aalam Wassef's site asking for input on what Egypt's new government should look like--open to all commenters). After all, they are the ones who had produced this initial victory, not us. And while American leftists are quite accomplished at employ biting sarcasm, withering irony, and hypocrisy-smashing logic in their twitter feeds, blogs and articles, these things have proved largely ineffective here at home, and certainly didn’t win the day at Tahrir Square.

Why might the American Left (and the world in general) be so envious? I’m reminded of something Robert Jensen recently wrote about the Left’s love affair with online activism, and the weaknesses inherent there:

… political information is not political action. Being able to [electronically] distribute more information more widely more quickly does not automatically lead to people acting on that information. The information must be presented in ways that lead people to believe they should act, and there must be vehicles for that action.

These days almost all left/radical organizers will communicate online, but the social justice and ecological sustainability at the heart of left/radical politics isn’t going to be achieved online.

Egyptians clearly have found a mode of political action that works for them. Clattering away at its computer keyboard, the American Left isn’t there yet.

Egypt

2011-02-06T15:30:00.000-06:00

We do not accept the proposition that Egypt's only choices are a slow-to-reform authoritarian regime or an Islamist extremist one; nor do we see greater democracy in Egypt as leading necessarily to a government under the MB [Muslim Brotherhood]. --January 29 2006 cable excerpt from US Ambassador to Egypt Francis Ricciardone to FBI Director Robert Mueller

I don't know who "We" is above, but it certainly did not include Bush then, and it most certainly doesn't include Obama now. I'm sure to many of us, Ricciardone's assertion seems so self-evident that it hardly needs stating. But sadly, the current US administration seems as cynical as ever as it presents a completely unconvincing facade of support for the Egyptian people bleeding in the streets, while desperately attempting to salvage the 'friendly dictatorship' that oppresses them, complete with scary choices between dictatorship, chaos, and the islamist extremist boogyman. As an American who voted for Obama, this has been both painful and embarrassing to watch. The US appears dedicated to swapping Mubarak with an (at least) equally pliant Suleiman, a man Obama knows and trusts to help implement a badly flawed set of US regional interests.

As the US attempts this cheap deception, it is up to the Egyptian people to see this not-so-hidden gimmick for what it is, and to refuse it. So far, this "leaderless" protest has been superbly organized and beautifully disciplined. I'm hopeful that the leadership so obviously present on the Egyptian street will not settle for what has been offered to them so far.

American Terrorism

2010-09-13T17:59:00.000-05:00

One of the big advantages terrorism and terrorists enjoy is our collective failure to think clearly about terror--our seeming inability to clearly define what these things are. While some aspects of terror seem fairly clear and widely held, other aspects see less agreement. Perhaps one of the most widely accepted hallmarks of terrorism is that terrorist acts always have two targets, in which the immediate victim is actually of secondary importance:

"Terrorism is an anxiety-inspiring method of repeated violent action, ... whereby...the direct targets of violence are not the main targets. The immediate human victims of violence are generally chosen randomly (targets of opportunity) or selectively (representative or symbolic targets) from a target population, and serve as message generators" (Schmid and Jongman 1988).

Or consider this:

The purpose of terrorism is to exploit the media in order to achieve maximum attainable publicity as an amplifying force multiplier in order to influence the targeted audience(s) in order to reach short- and midterm political goals and/or desired long-term end states.

Terrorists do not primarily aim at the physical, but on the strategy that primarily relies on the symbolic strength of the act. The use of terror serves not primarily the purposes of fighting, injuring or destroying the opponent. Rather, its primary purpose lies in the conveying of messages to the target audience(s). Terrorists perpetrate their acts without regard for war fighting conventions. The symbolism originating from terrorist acts and media marketing thereof is intended to address the public, to use them as a vehicle and a communication channel to influence the political representatives/decision makers and other target audiences.

Considering the above, the "why" of terrorism--its intended purpose--appears to have wide or even universal agreement. But other aspects of the definition, dealing with "who" terrorists are, and "how" they attack, find less agreement. For example, some terrorism definitions (such as that used by the FBI) require that a violent act be perpetrated against innocent civilians, while other standards are more extensive and accept not just actual violence but also symbolic violence, or acts that threaten future violence.

Another point of disagreement centers on the "who" of terrorism, in that some definitions exclude individual actors, or others might exclude state actors. An example of the latter case was related by former US Ambassador Edward Peck to Democracy Now:

"1985, when I was the Deputy Director of the Reagan White House Task Force on Terrorism, they asked us—this is a Cabinet Task Force on Terrorism; I was the Deputy Director of the working group—they asked us to come up with a definition of terrorism that could be used throughout the government. We produced about six, and each and every case, they were rejected, because careful reading would indicate that our own country had been involved in some of those activities.

After the task force concluded its work, Congress got into it, and you can google into U.S. Code Title 18, Section 2331, and read the U.S. definition of terrorism. And one of them in here says—one of the terms, "international terrorism," means "activities that," I quote, "appear to be intended to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping."

Yes, well, certainly, you can think of a number of countries that have been involved in such activities. Ours is one of them. Israel is another. And so, the terrorist, of course, is in the eye of the beholder."

Peck's story is almost comical, depicting our own government's Homer Simpson-like attempt to clearly define terrorism--only to find ourselves included in every workable definition of the word. Perhaps this explains how our current working definitions--the varying and somewhat contradictory assortment used by our own federal agencies and armed forces--are such a mishmash. I guess it's inevitable that we won't ever come up with a sound, comprehensive and useful definition of terrorism if by doing so we're putting the finishing strokes on our own self-portrait.

So, given our current conceptual difficulties, how are we to view the following?

Burned Quran Smeared with Feces found at East Lansing Mosque

BY Steve Pardo / The Detroit News

A burned Quran was found at a mosque in East Lansing on Saturday, prompting the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations to ask the FBI to investigate.

CAIR-MI reports that officials of the Islamic Center of East Lansing say vandals left a burned Quran at the front entrance of the mosque and scattered pages in the street nearby. Torn pages of the Quran appeared to be smeared with feces, CAIR officials said.

or this?

KPD, FBI Investigating Shot and Burned Quran left at Knoxville Mosque

The vandalized Quran was discovered about noon Sunday on the sidewalk outside the Annoor Mosque, 100 13th St., according to a police report filed by Nadeem Siddiqi. Siddiqi is a board member of the Muslim Community of Knoxville.

A member of the mosque found the Quran during morning prayers, according to the report.

Siddiqi said the book appeared "like it had not been used a whole lot." The burned book also contained several holes. "It was only partially burned," Siddiqi said. "It looked like someone had shot it with a shotgun."

I'd suggest that rather than arguing about the identity of the perpetrators and whether they can be considered terrorists, or whether the acts described above constitute actual violence or just symbolic violence--and thus may or may not be considered "terrorism", we focus instead on the intent of these actions. Their purpose. And that purpose is described perfectly in the literature defining terrorism, including the passage cited at the top of this piece:

Terrorists do not primarily aim at the physical, but on the strategy that primarily relies on the symbolic strength of the act. The use of terror serves not primarily the purposes of fighting, injuring or destroying the opponent. Rather, its primary purpose lies in the conveying of messages to the target audience(s).

I don't know if these and other acts of widespread terror being perpetrated against mosques and American Muslim communities will be recorded officially as "terrorism" or not. Given the disarray in our thinking about terrorism, they likely won't be.

But as the old judge said, quibble all you wish with definitions--I know it when I see it.

The Shell Game in Iraq

2010-09-05T15:09:00.000-05:00

It appears that this is the season for presidential shell games, with the attack on Social Security, the sham Israeli/Palestinian peace talks, and the "removal of all combat troops from Iraq" all competing for the honor of being the most misleading scam on American citizens.

Before the moment gets too far removed, I want to note the Iraq "no combat here" story in particular. In the YouTube piece below, Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies unmasks the shell game recently sold to the American public about our basing and status in Iraq (with great thanks to The Real News--please consider supporting them). She points specifically to the new deployment of a combat unit, the 3rd Armored Cavalry Brigade from Fort Hood, Texas, as directly contradicting widely-published claims that our combat troops are all coming home--a message conceived of and controlled by this administration for many months now.

But even if 3rd Armored Brigade had not deployed, there is ample and equally-clear evidence elsewhere. The 4th BCT of the 3rd Infantry Division, 4th BCT, 1st Cav and 116th Cav BCT all are either deploying to Iraq as part of "Operation New Dawn" or they are already there. Each one is clearly a combat unit.

As I noted in an earlier post on the Iraq shell game, it is remarkable that something so obvious and easily proven has been so poorly...no, dishonestly...reported.

But, the issue of combat troops aside, an even more glaring trick by Obama may well backfire on him. He has branded this partial withdrawal of combat forces as a cessation of US combat in Iraq, and it has already become obvious that this claim is empty, too. This is because Obama no longer controls (if he ever did) whether his troops engage in combat or not. That control has gone over to a diverse and often competing or conflicting array of Sunni, Shia, and other forces whom we term "the insurrection:"

Assault on Iraqi military HQ kills 12; U.S. helps out

Suicide bombers struck a Baghdad military headquarters on Sunday and killed 12 people, two weeks after an attack on the same site pointed to the failure of Iraqi forces to plug even the most obvious holes in their security.

U.S. troops at the military compound to train Iraqi forces helped repel the attack, marking the first time American forces have been involved in an exchange of gunfire in Baghdad since the U.S. officially ended combat operations in Iraq less than a week ago.

There's a word for 'exchange of gunfire' between hostile forces in a war zone. It's called "combat".

Swedish Authorities Reverse Themselves Again in Assange Case

2010-09-01T09:16:00.000-05:00

The Swedish Prosecution Authority has announced yet another course-change in the Assange case. To quickly review, the initial "on-call" prosecutor in the case had brought rape and 'molestation' charges, only to have the rape charge dropped by a second overseeing prosecutor hours later. The initial charge and immediate withdrawl by SPA was documented here (among many other venues) and brought criticism to SPA's handling of the issue. While the rape charge was almost instantly dropped for lack of evidence, the lesser charge remained. Today, the SPA released the following statement:

Decision on the request for review

Director of Public Prosecution Ms Marianne Ny has decided on the request for review in the Assange matter.

The investigation concerning rape will be reopened.

- There is reason to believe that a crime has been committed. Considering information available at present, my judgement is that the classification of the crime is rape. The basis for further considerations is not sufficient at the moment. More investigations are neccessary before a final decision can be made.

The investigation concerning molestation will be extended to include all allegations in the original police report.

- There is reason to believe that a crime has been committed. Based on the information available, the crimes in question come under the heading of sexual coercion and sexual molestation, respectively.

Director of Public Prosecution Marianne Ny will be leading the further investigations. She will be assisted by Deputy Chief Prosecutor Ms Erika Lejnefors.

- Due to the investigation and the persons involved in the matter, I cannot give more information concerning details in the investigation.

This latest reversal by Swedish authorities reopens the rape charge, and expands the lesser charge into "all allegations in the original police report", and appears to be based on the SPA claim that new information had come in on the case late on Tuesday.

Reversals of this type may be exceedingly rare in Sweden. The website Cryptome.org has stated that for the year 2008, the number of SPA reversals of this sort made up less than one percent of all cases handled. It is unclear to me where that data originates, and I have not verified it as of this posting. However, if Cryptome.org is correct, the Assange case re-reversal by SPA is highly unusual on procedural grounds alone. While SPA's behavior here may be correct and appropriate, this case and their handling of it deserves the closest scrutiny.

Underlying all this, of course, is the fact that SPA's behavior in this case single-handedly ensures that many news cycles will see headlines in which the words "Assange", "Rape" and "Molestation" occur in close proximity in news stories and headlines. If someone wanted to deliberately attack and smear an opponent, this is precisely what they would want to see.

All Mosques are Too Close to Ground Zero

2010-08-23T10:32:00.000-05:00

Reading Glen Greenwald's column today regarding Sunday's ugly anti-Muslim protest at the Park51 center, I was immediately reminded of an equally ugly islamophobic event that took place recently in Bridgeport, Connecticut (CT Post, August 6):

The CT Post article:

BRIDGEPORT -- About a dozen right-wing Christians, carrying placards and yelling "Islam is a lie," angrily confronted worshippers outside a Fairfield Avenue mosque Friday.

"Jesus hates Muslims," they screamed at worshippers arriving at the Masjid An-Noor mosque to prepare for the holy month of Ramadan. One protester shoved a placard at a group of young children leaving the mosque. "Murderers," he shouted.

Police arrived on the scene to separate the groups, but said no arrests were made.

Flip Benham, of Dallas, Texas, organizer of the protest, was yelling at the worshipers with a bullhorn. "This is a war in America and we are taking it to the mosques around the country," he said.

Mustafa Salahuddin, an Ansonia police officer and parishioner at the mosque, calmly watched the protesters from the mosque's parking area. "This is unfortunate, but it's a free country," he commented on the protest. "But I believe Jesus would have been appalled by this. We revere Jesus the same way they do."

The Masjid An-Noor mosque is roughly 49 straight-line miles from Manhattan. That is about 980 city blocks.

The ugly display on view in Bridgeport begs the question--how far from Ground Zero does a church have to be, in order that citizens be allowed to practice their religion without prejudice and interference?   How many blocks from ground zero, or Manhattan, or New York, must they be? Where can a mosque be safely built?

The answer appears to be "nowhere".   In this country, all mosques are too close to Ground Zero.

Why Did Swedish Prosecutors Break Their Own Policy in the Assange Case?

2010-08-22T09:30:00.000-05:00

[a followup post on this story is available here]

The "why" of the quickly-withdrawn 'case' against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange seems clear enough--it has all the initial indicators of a fabricated attempt to defame him. But the "how" of this attempt is murky. Here's an admittedly rough translation of part of the Swedish Prosecution Authority FAQ on their actions to date regarding Assange (Google translation edited for clarity):

Why was Julian Assange's name published?

Prosecutors do not normally publish the names of arrested persons, and the Swedish Prosecution Authority was not the source [cause] of Assange's name [being published] in this case. Assange's information reached - in a way that the authority does not know - a news service. The prosecutor's office merely confirmed the information.

If the above is true, why didn't the Authority simply issue a "no-comment / ongoing investigation" statement rather than confirming that Assange was indeed the subject of investigation? If it is indeed the Prosecution Authority's policy not to release identities, the act of confirming an identity and making it public is no less a violation of policy than announcing Assange's name outright.

And if the Prosecution Authority is being truthful that it did not leak Assange's name as part of a false smear effort, who did?

So far, the explanations offered by the Prosecution Authority do not even begin to explain an apparent failure to follow their own policies. All this, needless to say, doesn't even touch on the remarkable flimsiness of the case, which was withdrawn within hours of being issued.

From Comments:

Commenter HT points to this piece, in which a former chief prosecutor assails the methods used in the Assange case (again, edited from Google translator for clarity):

Sven-Erik Alhem believes that on-call prosecutor Mary Häljebo Kjell Beach erred by telling the media that Julian Assange was suspected of rape and charged in his absence. "An arrest warrant in the absence [of the charged individual?] would not normally be trumpeted out. It normally would remain confidential. In principle I do not think you should talk about who is charged in his absence" he said.

Ergo comments that the prosecutor responsible for the initial charge against Assange has been reported to the Swedish Parliamentary Ombudsman (JO). This is not necessarily a serious charge, and is certainly not any form of proof of negligence, as anyone can report a Swedish official to the JO, including non-Swedsh citizens or organizations. It may, however, produce some clarity on what has transpired within the Prosecution Authority during this 'case'.

- - -

Readers interested in more context on the events surrounding the case should take a look at Nicholas Mead's coverage here.

- - -

In this interview on al Jazeera today, a spokesperson representing Sweden's Prosecution Authority states that the agency stands behind its recent actions against Assange. Remarkably, she also refused to comment, several times, regarding various aspects of the case, because of "ongoing investigations." I'm mystified by the sudden onset of tight lips on this--if the Prosecution Authority can not discuss the particulars of the investigation now, why were they so free with this same information previously? What has changed between then, and now?

Ron Paul on the Park51 Community Center

2010-08-21T11:21:00.000-05:00

Ron Paul on the Park51 Community Center Demagogues:

“It is repeatedly said that 64% of the people, after listening to the
political demagogues, don’t want the mosque to be built. What would we
do if 75% of the people insist that no more Catholic churches be built in New York City? The point being is that majorities can become
oppressors of minority rights as well as individual dictators.
Statistics of support is irrelevant when it comes to the purpose of
government in a free society—protecting liberty."

At least he's consistent, unlike the vast majority of fake conservatives parading around on this issue. And although Paul is halfway insane on some issues, he does show where there could be a lot of common ground between real, actual conservatives and real liberals--the common ground being a respect for the constitution (and also that the Bush Neocons were/are evil incarnate).

So, will big-government Republicans listen to Ron Paul, or will they continue to listen to the likes of Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich?

A Moving World

Christopher Hitchens and the Kings County Landfill

Karl Rove's Spectacular Lies

A Disturbing Account of DHS Presence at Occupy Los Angeles

The Bombings Will Continue Until Morale Improves

The Corrupt Origins and Hidden Dangers of Pepper Spray (OC) Use by Law Enforcement

Democracy Now Swings and Misses on Federal Involvement in Occupy Raids

A Question of Federal Involvement in Occupy Wall Street (#OWS) Raids

Listening to the Occupy Movement

Listening to Occupy Oakland

"Horse Race" Media Reporting Arrives at Occupy Wall Street

After Nine Years of War, Iraq Liberates the US

The European Banking Crisis Explained

Barney Frank Blames Occupy Wall Street

"I've Got Nothing For You On That"

The Pathetic Left

Rick Perry's Climate-Science Whoppers Not Shared by Texas State Climatologist

The Conversion of Osama bin Laden

Hard Times

The Next Disappointment: Obama to Back Simpson-Bowles as Budget Debate Starter

Who Won the Budget Deal?

A Hopeless Left, As Obama Launches Re-election Run

"One Toke Over the Line" by Lawrence Welk

Job Growth Continues Positive in March, But Do Public Sector Layoffs Threaten Longer Term

Lawrence O'Donnell, Rand Paul, and Constitutional Pretzel Logic on Libya

The Triumph of Sanctimonious Democratic Purists in Wisconsin

President-Elect Barack Obama on Bradley Manning

Juan Cole, US Intervention in Libya, and the Left's Constitutional Myopia

US Government Develops "Panic Button" Software to Protect Activists from "Repressive Governments"

Constitutional Process Matters, Except When Digby Knows Better

Fareed Zakaria's Call for US Intervention in Libya

Requiem for Japan

Unemployment: Don't Uncork the Champagne Just Yet

Governor Scott Walker, The Koch Brothers and The New Normal

Where is the Democratic Governors Association in the Wisconsin Fight?

Wisconsin Law Enforcement Union: "Tragic Mistake to Endorse Walker"

By His Own Definition, Governor Walker Is a Bully

Egypt Envy

Egypt

American Terrorism

The Shell Game in Iraq

Swedish Authorities Reverse Themselves Again in Assange Case

All Mosques are Too Close to Ground Zero

Why Did Swedish Prosecutors Break Their Own Policy in the Assange Case?

Ron Paul on the Park51 Community Center

Ron Paul on the Park51 Community Center Demagogues:

Yeah, afraid you're probably right.