Monday Reads
Posted: November 22, 2010 Filed under: Diplomacy Nightmares, Hillary Clinton: Her Campaign for All of Us, Human Rights, just because, morning reads | Tags: DADT, GLBT rights, internet freedom of speech, monetary policy, quantitative easing, Web neutrality 88 Comments
Good Morning!
First up is something that is one huge step back for civil rights and humankind. I can’t believe this outrageous motion was adopted by the UN. The US and its allies need to object vigorously.
The UN has removed a reference to sexual orientation from a resolution condemning arbitrary and unjustified executions.
The UN General Assembly resolution, which is renewed every two years, contained a reference opposing the execution of LBGT people in its 2008 version. But this year’s version passed without any reference to gay rights after a group of mostly African and Asian countries, led by Mali and Morocco, voted to remove it.
Gay rights groups fear the move — which passed in a narrow 79 to 70 vote — will act as a signal that persecuting people for their sexual orientation is internationally acceptable.
“This vote is a dangerous and disturbing development,” Cary Alan Johnson, executive director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, said in a statement. “It essentially removes the important recognition of the particular vulnerability faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people — a recognition that is crucial at a time when 76 countries around the world criminalize homosexuality, five consider it a capital crime, and countries like Uganda are considering adding the death penalty to their laws criminalizing homosexuality.”
Johnson was referring to a bill introduced in Uganda’s legislature last year that would mandate the death penalty for multiple acts of gay sex or for any gay person carrying HIV. Though the bill appeared to be shelved after an international outcry, its principal supporter said last month the bill would be law “soon.”
Thankfully, we’re moving closer to repealing DADT. The Marines have stated that they stand ready to remove enforcement of the provision. Semper Fi!!!
The head of the U.S. Marine Corps will fully cooperate with a repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy barring openly gay and lesbian soldiers from the military, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen said Sunday.
In an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Mullen said there was “no question” that Marine Commandant Gen. James Amos, an opponent of repealing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy at this time, would implement all necessary changes to allow openly gay Marines to serve if Congress passes a repeal measure.
“He basically said that if this law changes, we are going to implement it, and we are going to implement it better than anybody else,” Mullen said of comments Amos recently made at a townhall-style meeting with Marines.
The U.S. Senate is expected to vote on repealing the policy in coming weeks. The House already has passed a repeal measure, and President Barack Obama says he supports repeal under a process worked out with Mullen and Defense Secretary Robert Gates that includes a review of what the change would entail for the military.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appeared on Fox News on Sunday . Clinton told Chris Wallace that she believed the 
‘vast majority’ of Gitmo detainees should be tried in civilian courts.
We do believe that what are called Article Three trials, in other words in our civilian courts, are appropriate for the vast majority of detainees,” Clinton told Fox News’ Chris Wallace.
This week, a civilian trial convicted Guantanamo Bay detainee Ahmed Ghailani on one count and acquitted him of more than 280 other counts.
“The question is do you have any choice now except to hold all of the terror detainees at Gitmo or either give them military trials or hold them indefinitely?” Wallace asked Clinton.
“The sentence for what he was convicted of is 20 years to life,” Clinton replied. “That is a significant sentence. Secondly, some of the challenges in the courtroom would be the very same challenges before a military commission about whether or not certain evidence could be used.”
Clinton also appeared on Meet the Press. She expressed reservations about the intrusive pat down procedures adopted by the TSA.
The Secretary of State also branded the procedure as ‘offensive’ and called for officials to make the new airport security measures less intrusive.
Speaking on CBS’ Face the Nation and NBC’s Meet the Press, Mrs Clinton said she recognised the need for tighter security but said there was a need to ‘strike the right balance’ and ‘get it better and less intrusive and more precise.’
When asked if she would submit to a pat-down, she replied ‘Not if I could avoid it. No. I mean, who would?’
Mrs Clinton added she understood ‘how offensive it must be’ for passengers forced to endure the measures.
Another economist–Professor James Hamilton–is incensed about that stupid bunny cartoon with it’s outrageous lies on QE. There’s some more take down of the stupid thing on Econbrowser. Hamilton explains why ‘the Goldman Sachs’ is one of the agents used by the Fed when it does Open Market Operations. Basically, it’s the law and this is true if it’s in the name of QE or just regular monetary policy. He also takes down some of the other ones so that I don’t have to do it. He tackles the inflation fallacy as well as the stupid comment about QE being the equivalent of printing money.
Goldman Sachs is one of 16 different dealers from which the Federal Reserve Bank of New York solicits competitive bids. That’s the way it’s been done for a century, and it would be illegal for the Fed to do as the bunnies propose. From U.S. Monetary Policy and Financial Markets, 1998, Chapter 7:
The Federal Reserve makes all additions to its portfolio through purchases of securities that are already outstanding. The Federal Reserve Act [of 1913] does not give the [Federal Reserve] System the authority to purchase new Treasury issues for cash. Over the years, a variety of provisions had permitted the Treasury to borrow limited amounts directly from the Federal Reserve. Options for such loans existed until 1935. Temporary provisions for direct loans were reintroduced in 1942 and renewed with varying restrictions a number of times thereafter. Authority for any kind of direct loans to the Treasury lapsed in 1981 and has not been renewed.
The reason that the Fed has always been required to buy bonds from private dealers rather than the U.S. Treasury is that the process of money creation needs to be institutionally separated from the process of financing the public debt. In fact, the potential blurring of those boundaries is one of the most important legitimate criticisms of quantitative easing.
Another topic that confuses a lot of people is the Social Security Trust Fund. Does it exist or not? John Holbo at Crooked Timber takes on Matt Yglesias and a Planet Money podcast. He explains it in terms of a parent (the government) borrowing a future allowance from a child (Social Security).
If the US government completely and unrecoverably collapses, as a going economic concern, then the Social Security Trust Fund will be bust – and there will be no United States, too! (The latter is the more consequential concern, I should think.)
If the US government falls on seriously hard times, economically, there may need to be belt-tightening. Maybe the US government will have to break the deal it made, not making good on the IOU’s in the Social Security Trust Fund. Likewise, if our family falls on hard times, I may be driven to spend my daughter’s back allowance money on food for our table, in the sense that I may never pay her that money. (Hope not!) But if that happens I won’t describe the logic of the situation in terms of my daughter’s back allowance having turned out not to have been ‘real’, all along. If I don’t pay her, it won’t be because I don’t owe her – nor because that specific money ‘doesn’t exist’, whereas the money to put food on the table ‘does exist’. Talking that way just takes the minor accounting fiction that starts us out, and inflates it into a major fiction.
If the US government doesn’t fall on seriously hard times, but just finds financial life a bit tight – as it often is – the same point applies, only more so.
Scientific American has an important piece up on the Web with an important call for continued Open Standards and Net Neutrality. They also have taken a strong stand against snooping and protecting free speech on the web. You can see in this article just how far ahead our European cousins are in protecting individual rights over corporate rights on the Web and the internet. They even quote Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s firm stand on internet freedom.
Free speech should be protected, too. The Web should be like a white sheet of paper: ready to be written on, with no control over what is written. Earlier this year Google accused the Chinese government of hacking into its databases to retrieve the e-mails of dissidents. The alleged break-ins occurred after Google resisted the government’s demand that the company censor certain documents on its Chinese-language search engine.
Totalitarian governments aren’t the only ones violating the network rights of their citizens. In France a law created in 2009, named Hadopi, allowed a new agency by the same name to disconnect a household from the Internet for a year if someone in the household was alleged by a media company to have ripped off music or video. After much opposition, in October the Constitutional Council of France required a judge to review a case before access was revoked, but if approved, the household could be disconnected without due process. In the U.K., the Digital Economy Act, hastily passed in April, allows the government to order an ISP to terminate the Internet connection of anyone who appears on a list of individuals suspected of copyright infringement. In September the U.S. Senate introduced the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act, which would allow the government to create a blacklist of Web sites—hosted on or off U.S. soil—that are accused of infringement and to pressure or require all ISPs to block access to those sites.
In these cases, no due process of law protects people before they are disconnected or their sites are blocked. Given the many ways the Web is crucial to our lives and our work, disconnection is a form of deprivation of liberty. Looking back to the Magna Carta, we should perhaps now affirm: “No person or organization shall be deprived of the ability to connect to others without due process of law and the presumption of innocence.”
When your network rights are violated, public outcry is crucial. Citizens worldwide objected to China’s demands on Google, so much so that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the U.S. government supported Google’s defiance and that Internet freedom—and with it, Web freedom—should become a formal plank in American foreign policy. In October, Finland made broadband access, at 1 Mbps, a legal right for all its citizens.
peej
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Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
Good Morning Dak! Super complete roundup.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101122/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_ireland_financial_crisis
Our military and civilian leaders basically share any IMF loans that reach my part of West Africa. Hope the same isn’t true in Ireland. Why is Ireland in financial trouble? I thought they were one of the more stable (albeit smaller) economies in Europe…
Not one mention of HOW the president plans on stimulating the economy. I’m SO glad you are head and shoulders better than this author. Asshat.
http://www.newdeal20.org/2010/11/18/the-story-behind-obamas-remarks-on-fdr-27539/
Horray and Kudos to Dr. Ferguson for trying to set the record straight about a great president before Obumbles sullies his name forever.
Hillary 2012
Hey Rock? Please disregard if I’m being too intrusive, but … “my part of West Africa” made me curious. Care to share?
And it still and always put a smile on my face when I see your sig lines. Even when they, as here, are split! 😉
So while Obama is fooling around at yet another summit, playing as usual the role of the class-clown, joking with the press corps on AF1, making himself the center of everything he says – Hillary Clinton is out there expressing adult views and concerns.
And people still think she as president would have been the same?!
[Shaking head in disbelief.]
Any person is better not being president than being president. The only reason she can express those sentiments is because she is not beholden to the interests that own this country lock, stock, and barrel for whatever power she has.
If your desire to be president is such that you actually run for office, I guess it is better being president than not, don’t you think? 😉
Hillary Clinton as president might in many instances have made the same decisions that Obama does, we’ll never know. But one thing’s for sure, there’d have been at least one grown up in The White House with her there! Someone I for one would have felt more comfortable about, making the important decisions.
it’s good to be king
Heh, right!
Or maybe not. Reminds me of John Huston’s great movie adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s short story “The man who would be King”, about two men aiming a bit too high – which turns out to be fatal.
Yet, starring Michael Caine and Sean Connery, what more can you ask for?
She would have gotten a public option or bagged the HCR…. that is but one example. if Hillary was going to be the same as Obama, the powers that be would not have moved heaven and earth to stop her from 1600 PA Ave….She’s SOS now imo because to the rest of the world if our elite trash the USA it’s our own business. But after 8 years of Bush 2 the world demanded hard working competency when dealing with us…Who else but Hill ?
Apropos Net Neutrality, in Germany there’s a term “Datenschutz”, which means “data protection”. It stands for the idea that “every human being must be given autonomous power in deciding who, when, what should have access to his/her personal data.”
There’s not much information about this in English, but as it says on the homepage http://www.datenschutz.de/privo/
“Though the Virtual Privacy Office has the potential to provide an international platform for information on privacy protection, there have been only little contributions from non-German speaking organizations.”
Why is that, I wonder?
From an article in Sunday’s WaPo Afghans want their country back, referencing a polling by Canadian researcher Norine MacDonald:
Doesn’t that just make you want to yell: “I could have told you so!” ?
(This article has a link to a pdf with her full report.)
Afghans want their country back…
no one is asking them of course…They are mere citizens after all /snark
Here is some perspective on these evasive pat-downs:
“A US Army Staff Sergeant, now serving in Afghanistan, points out that he is not allowed to do these invasive, Enhanced Pat-Downs on women and children while conducting searches of local nationals over in Afghanistan, even when involved with security tasks within his Infantry company. Something that would probably save lives. Why?
So as to avoid offending the Afghan people. To avoid presenting the US government as oppressors. To avoid feeding the Taliban’s hatred. And yet, according to you Mr President these enhanced pat-downs are not only acceptable but necessary for the American traveling public.”
http://www.noquarterusa.net/blog/2010/11/22/mr-president-who-is-terrorizing-whom/
Here is a link to the Sargent’s interview. http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/11/body-searching-children-no-for-the-us-army-yes-for-the-tsa/66535/
Wow. That’s very telling.
Check out the last paragraph from this article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/18/AR2010111806856.html
”‘Why do you have to blow up so many of our fields and homes?’ a farmer from the Arghandab district asked a top NATO general at a recent community meeting.
Although military officials are apologetic in public, they maintain privately that the tactic has a benefit beyond the elimination of insurgent bombs. By making people travel to the district governor’s office to submit a claim for damaged property, ‘in effect, you’re connecting the government to the people,’ the senior officer said.”
Now THAT’S telling. Where is the DoD finding generals these days? Homes for the mentally retarded? (No offense to mentally retarded people, who would likely never say anything nearly that stupid.)
Scientists say they have solution to TSA scanner objections.
But why listen to scientists when getting political donations from huge corporations with ineffective machines is so much better when you’re a politician?
Speaking for myself, it is becoming increasingly difficult to watch Hillary Clinton being interviewed and not feel an abject sense of depression. “What might have been” keeps clammering in my head.
Trying to make the comparison between her and what we have in her place instead is demoralizing.
And if they cannot rid us of DADT soon there is little hope that it will happen for another 20 years. With the GOP holding the reins there is little chance that this will be addressed anytime soon.
Neither healthy nor helping. We need to learn from the past and figure out who’s next as Teh One we can all get behind and how to protect the caucus system from another gaming. If we wait too long to find the solution to getting this guy replaced with a quality leader, we are guaranteed 4 more years of this crap.
I have a hard time watching her for that very same reason, Pat. It’s actually made me cry on occasion. I tend to just look at pictures and read transcripts to avoid the depression.
Re: UN Resolution
“The U.S. delegation voted against the deletion but abstained from the vote on the final resolution.”
So Susan Rice voted “Present”. Is she from Chicago?
Un-f*cking believable?
OMG! I didn’t see that. That is just plain shocking to me. What is wrong with these people?
No Core Values. eom
yeah, that’s apparent.
Just saw this on McClatchy:
Transportation Security Administration chief John Pistole said on Monday that he disregarded internal advice to the contrary and decided not tell the public in advance about aggressive new screening and pat-down procedures for airline passengers, fearing terrorists could try to exploit the information.
Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/11/22/104123/tsa-chief-admits-he-withheld-information.html#ixzz16294Ejry
That guy needs to go. I saw him on CNN this morning and he didn’t give a straightforward answer to a single question out of the many he was asked. He wouldn’t even say anything about why a little boy needed to be strip searched. He won’t admit any mistakes. It’s ridiculous to have someone like that in a position of power–much less power over the bodies of every man, woman, and child who flies. Except of course the President and the rest of the elite class.
Maybe that’s because he wasn’t strip searched.
http://www.cogitamusblog.com/2010/11/young-boy-searched-not-stripsearched-as-header-says.html
Perhaps he could have said that then? The video showed a small boy being patted down, and his shirt was removed. So you believe that was appropriate and necessary?
Then why couldn’t the man in charge explain why when asked on national TV?
No one is ever going to convince me that what is being done by the TSA is going to stop terrorism or that it is even constitiutional. I don’t want to live in a police state. Obviously some Americans are OK with it, but I’m not.
I didn’t say anything about what I believed. I have no idea why Pistole didn’t answer the question if he was asked. I just know the kid was searched, not strip searched. He was apparently chosen at random. I don’t believe it was appropriate or necessary. My guess is that they are afraid an adult terrorist might plant something on a child so they are searching random children in order to discourage that.
I think the TSA should use mannequin models or stick figures on their monitors, not actual images of the passenger’s body, and only physically search if something shows up. Or something even less revealing, if possible.
James Fallows:
I’m sorry Branjor, I just don’t see the distinction. The use of the term “strip search” (at least in my comment) was just hyperbole. I assume it was the same in the labeling of the video.
The point is that children are being abused and traumatized in the name of “security” so that filthy rich corporate CEO’s can get even more taxpayer money.
I fail to see how picking apart someone’s use of hyperbole is relevant to that.
Maybe it’s not. Maybe I was just picking apart the hyperbole because I don’t like hyperbole.
Maybe I was just picking apart the hyperbole because I don’t like hyperbole.
Maybe? Is that statement true or not? If it’s true, then I’ll just pass over such comments in the future.
I’m concerned about constitutional rights. I’m also concerned about mistreatment of children.
In the future I’ll respect your right to focus on whether specific words are used appropriately when discussing important issues. In return, will you please not involve me in it next time?
Kindly stop being so nasty to me just because I pointed out an inaccuracy in what you and the video’s header said. I don’t deserve this.
I’ll point out inaccuracies when I see them, just as I am sure you will do with me.
I have no idea if what I said about not liking hyperbole is invariably true.
I make no promises about not “involving” you in the future.
No, I wouldn’t do that to you. And in the future I’ll use Emptywheel’s term for what TSA is doing: “gate rape.”
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2010/11/22/john-pistole-ignored-dhs-suggestion-to-warn-about-gate-rape/
Hey, Branjor … that last comment was way out of line and I deleted it.
Gate Rape is so much more effective as a tool of intimidation when you surprise your victims!!
Reading the comments on the Econbrowser link makes me feel like I’m reading badly done scholastic philosophy. To wit, whoever on there said that the fed is not “printing money” because it’s not -literally- printing money probably has a long and fruitful career waiting for him/her in the Dept of Meaningless Distinctions and Determining If An Angel Going From Point A to Point C Has To Pass Through Point B.
Good point.
Never underestimate the number of undergraduates who’ll make silly comments to show their teacher they’re involved as a tool for kissing up!!!
Who? Certainly not me!
some of the commenters in that thread wreaked of it …
Oh, yea.
Just a reminder that today is November 22, the 47th anniversary of the murder of President John F. Kennedy.
There sure were a lot of “lone gunmen” running around in the 1960s!
Dak — I was very interested in the UN removing sexual orientation from a list of unjustified executions…
Recently, Dak, you said you wanted to read the C Street book re fundamentalism. I replied it was much much worse than you thought.
One thing: Uganda wanting to execute homosexuals — well, it sounds incredible, but the C streeters are over there in Uganda urging this on, trying to do there what they can’t yet do here, as the book maintains.
Yup. It’s true.
I think the fundies are dangerous, but it’s actually a limited danger (in this country) because of how obviously crazy they are. I mean, how many people are going to go with any of the political proposals that some guy makes once they realize that he believes that the Bible “proves” that humans and dinosaurs coexisted?
Now, plop him down in Africa, and he’ll have a church up and running in no time, where people will believe any crazy crap that rolls out of his mouth.
more people than you think
The really crazy stuff is dying out even now.
No, it isn’t.
I’m from the south. My entire father’s side of the family lives in the Mississippi Delta. My mother’s side is scattered throughout Central Louisiana and Northeast Texas, and I can tell you for an absolute certainty that a lot of the really crazy stuff is less powerful now than it used to be. Hell, the Church of Christ that my aunt goes to has gay couples.
You need to be in Washington, DC or in one of the military branches to see the REALLY crazy stuff, unfortunately.
Excuse me? Not everyone in Africa is ignorant, and The Family is extremely powerful in our government. They virtually control the Pentagon and the military.
Not everyone in America is ignorant, but there are sure are enough of them to mess things up.
I’m reading the book right now.
I’m glad you’re reading it. I already knew that fundamentalism in America is powerful, but the C Street book opened my eyes even wider, to the horrifying lengths these people are going.
Every time she brings up something she’s just read I about pass out. It’s horrifying!!!
The book is also on CD. You can get it from the library and listen to it in the car.
The first book was scary enough, but this one is really freaking me out!
The “first book”? What was that?
Maybe we are talking about different books? I meant the one by Jeff Sharlet: C Street: The Fundamentalist Threat to American Democracy. That was his second book on the group. The first was called The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power.
What book are you reading? I shouldn’t have assumed, but Sharlet is THE expert, so I figured that was what you were reading.
The book I’m referencing is C Street: The Fundamentalist Threat….
I must check out the other one you mention: The Family: the secret fundamentalism
I appreciate the thoughts you’ve expressed. I truly believe this threat can scarcely be over-stated. To the contrary.
Now I have it ordered from amazon
Searching babies for bombs:
Go ahead, defend that. Anyone?
I don’t think the conservatives are at all fond of the new Total Sexual Assault procedures.
This is just is just getting stranger by the minute.
What is going on?
More from James Fallows:
From Branjor’s link, the statement of the person who made the video:
Note that the witness says the father appeared angry.
The FBI raided three hedge funds today: Diamondback Capital and Level Global Investors in Connecticut, and Loch Capital in Boston.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704243904575630693960704872.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Let’s hope it spreads.
Great news!
I read an article about this. It said they had uncovered violations that involved “tens of millions” of dollars. Sounds like a lot, but that’s piddly-s–t change for the financial industry, and I’d be willing to bet that in such a heavily regulated (and cartelized) industry, the corruption goes waaaaay down.
Going after firms for a few million in whatever is like going after Al Capone for not remitting a few cents in sales tax (with the notable exception that, while violent, Al Capone actually provided a useful service.)
Can I have my house value and lost returns on my retirement fund back now?
I would like my house, stock and 401k values returned as well. Drives me bonkers when you hear the talking heads cheer that markets are back to precrash levels. Don’t they get that dropping x percent and then rising the same x percent yields a net negative?
To these people, taking your house, stock, and 401K is part of the fun of being Masters of the Universe.
Exactly!!
That’s all I want.
I have just witnessed the death of our civilization:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6nW6WxEev4&feature=player_embedded
Pardon me while I don a sackcloth, smear myself with ashes, and scream “Repent! Repent!” to all who will hear.
If Yogi Bear equals the end of civilization, then the end came in 1958.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogi_Bear
I’m kind’ve a purist when it comes to old Hanna and Barbera cartoons. I do not want to have to associate Boo Boo with Justin Timberlake.
I’m cool with the old cartoons. It’s the sight of these CGI monstrosities doing the same things in real-life settings that throws me for a loop. Yogi and Boo Boo are funny in the old style of animation. I look at the “live-action” versions in that trailer, and I want them hunted down and shot before they can reproduce. When I think of all the effort and technical expertise that went into putting that piece of junk together, I just want to hang my head and ask, “What have we come to?”
RSM, I hear ya.
Happy Birthday to Terry Gilliam, 70 years today and living proof that some men just never grow up – and an example of why sometimes it really is ok. 😀
wow … wish he was still doing movies …
I’d have been much happier of this would’ve been included at the end of Bambi.
I woke up the dog cheering for the deer!
Bambi, the movie that has traumatized me for life. I saw it once, ONCE, when I was 5 years old. My parents had to leave the theatre I was crying so hard. Just thinking of the plot makes my eyes well up with tears.
I guess my enviro-weenyism started young. Heh.
I have a rule around the farm which rarely gets broken. If we are moving brush piles, etc, we have to do it early enough in the season that there won’t be babies in them. Baby birds, baby rodents, whatever. If we find babies the brush pile has to stay, even if it’s inconvenient. I won’t mow down the bird nests in the tall grass in the pasture until they are empty either. If we break either rule, we have to move the babies nearby and watch over them until their Mom or Dad comes. Heh. I just hate not letting the little tykes get a start in life. Even if they will annoy me (the rodents) later.
Babar was pretty ghastly for me as a child. Why do children’s books/movies so often depict children losing their parents?
They don’t often depict children losing “parents”, they often depict children losing mothers. The dead mother has been a favorite of male fairy talers for hundreds of years.
Happens with moose all the time