Thursday Reads: Lying Politicians vs Truly Egregious Behavior; Crazy Republicans; and More

Posted: June 9, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, abortion rights, child sexual abuse, children, Crime, Democratic Politics, Economy, fetus fetishists, Foreign Affairs, Libya, U.S. Economy, U.S. Military, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 33 Comments

Good Morning!!

I’m sick and tired of the Weiner story, and I know most of you are too; but I just want to highlight a few reactions that I found interesting–all G rated.

I love this Lambert post, especially this part:

ZOMG!!!!!!! Offensive behavior online!!!!!!!! [Too tired for the riffs about the pearl clutching and the fainting couch.]

Anyhow, so Weiner’s an asshole. And so what. As William Gibson said:

“Fortunately,” he said, “it isn’t about who’s an asshole. If it were, our work would never be done.”

Love that quote! As Lambert points out, these “ethics” investigations never seem to happen to people who engage in torture, election fraud, or handing over the U.S. treasury to banksters.

Speaking of assholes, Andrew Breitbart claims he still has one more “lewd picture” of Weiner that he hasn’t released–and it’s not the one going around today. Talk about an evil human being. Breitbart is disgusting. If you read to the end of that piece, you’ll find out Breitbart’s notions of female sexuality.

One person who seems to have a little sympathy for Weiner is Charlie Rangel.

“His most serious problem is keeping his wife and family together at this time,” Rangel said in an interview on Fox Business Network set to air Wednesday evening.

Rangel did not suggest that Weiner resign. Here’s what he had to say about “ethics” investigations:

“They may do that, and God knows, I know what people feel they have to do as politicians to protect themselves. It’s totally unbelievable, but it happens,” Rangel said. “They love you, but they love themselves better and they make political decisions not to how it affects you, but to how it affects them and their reelection.”

They are all slime, yet they presume to sit in judgment on others. What Weiner did makes me sick, but the rest of them make me even sicker.

Melanie Sloan of CREW says there is a double-standard operating in the many calls for Weiner to resign.

“This is a massive overreaction and I don’t understand it,” said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

She points out that Charlie Rangel was censured for serious ethical breaches, yet was not forced to resign.

Sloan explained that the mounting pressure on Weiner may stem in part from the early precedent set by House Speaker John Boehner when, at the first sign of sexual misconduct, he urged Reps. Mark Souder (R, Ind.) and Chris Lee (R, N.Y.) to resign, even though their behavior didn’t appear to involve any abuse of their office.

“A lot of people really hate Weiner, too,” she said, referring to Weiner’s colleagues in the House, some of whom are said to have been rankled by his personality and frequent media appearances.

What about Weiner’s denials before he owned up?

“A politician lying is not that unusual,” Sloan said. “If the new standard is that politicians are out the second they lie to us, then a lot of politicians could be gone.”

How true.

As egregious as Weiner’s behavior was, it wasn’t a crime. Here’s an example of truly egregious behavior: U.S. pediatrician on trial for raping toddlers

A Delaware pediatrician went on trial for allegedly raping or sexually exploiting 86 young patients, all girls except one and almost all younger than three.

Earl Bradley has pleaded not guilty to 24 counts against him, and sat quietly in gray prison scrubs as a veteran state trooper spent hours Tuesday describing the doctor’s cache of home videos of the assaults.

They were so “horrible,” testified state police detective Scott Garland, a specialist in forensic computer evidence. “They were beyond anything I had ever witnessed. Nothing prepared me for it.”

And then there’s this: Casey Antony told a fellow inmate that she used chloroform to knock out her daughter Caylee when she (Casey) wanted to party.

And how about this?

Gaddafi bought Viagra-like pills for troops to attack women

Luis Moreno-Ocampo said he may ask for a new charge of mass rape to be made against Gaddafi following the new evidence. The chief International Criminal Court prosecutor is expecting a decision from judges within days on his request for crimes against humanity charges against the Libyan leader.

“Now we are getting some information that Gaddafi himself decided to rape and this is new,” Mr Moreno-Ocampo told reporters.

He said there were reports of hundreds of women attacked in some areas of Libya, which is in the grip of a months-long internal rebellion.

Mr Moreno-Ocampo said there was evidence that the Libyan authorities bought “Viagra-type” medicines and gave them to troops as part of the official rape policy.

“They were buying containers to enhance the possibility to rape women,” he said.

“We had doubts at the beginning but now we are more convinced that he decided to punish using rapes,” the prosecutor said. “It was very bad — beyond the limits, I would say.”

Let’s move on to the horrors of the Republican 2012 presidential field. According to a new Quinnipiac poll, voters aren’t ready for a Mormon president.

Sorry, Mitt. John Huntsman is also a Mormon. I guess voters don’t mind looney religionists as long as they claim to be Christians though. Have you heard about Tim Pawlenty’s economic plan?

Pawlenty calls for sweeping tax cuts dubbed by some as “breathtaking.” He’d cut the corporate income tax from 35 percent to 15 percent, and eliminate taxes on capital gains, interest income, dividends and inheritances. There would be two tiers of personal income taxes — 10 percent and 25 percent.

Pawlenty would require Congress to reauthorize all federal regulations and radically reshape the federal government by privatizing services such as the U.S. Postal Service and Amtrak. He also would support an ill-advised balanced budget amendment. You could almost hear the corporate special interests uttering “check, check and check!” as the South St. Paul truck driver’s son ticked off items on their wish lists and then one-upped them.

Just reading about it makes me want to run out into the street screaming and tearing my hair out.

Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann are supposedly feuding now because Ed Rollins said that Bachman is more “serious” than Palin. I had to really look around to find an article that didn’t call it a “cat fight.” Here’s Rollins, quoted by NPR:

“Well I’m going to work for Michele Bachmann if she runs. That’s the one that intrigues me the most at this point and I think to a certain extent she’s articulate, she’s a conservative. She’s got a great story to tell. She’s on the Intelligence Committee. You know, she’s unknown to the national audience, but she’ll become known and that’s the candidacy that I’m going to work for if she runs.

“Sarah has not been serious over the last couple of years. She got the vice-presidential thing handed to her. She didn’t go to work in the sense of trying gain more substance. She gave up her governorship. You know, I think Michele Bachmann and others have worked hard. She has been a leader of the Tea Party, which is a very important element here. She’s an attorney, done extraordinary things with family values and what have you. So I think she will connect. She’s a great, great communicator and I would say in the race today she is probably the best communicator.”

Kinda takes your breath away, doesn’t it? Now check this out: Santorum Calls Abortion Exceptions To Protect Health Of The Mother ‘Phony’

Longshot GOP presidential hopeful and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum stomped for votes in Iowa on Tuesday, trumpeting his “culture wars” message. A longtime anti-abortion activist, Santorum is selling himself as the leading social conservative in a crowded field. Yesterday in West Des Moines, he made an appearance at a “crisis pregnancy center” called Informed Choices that tries to talk women out of having abortions. Santorum said that he “separates [himself] from the rest of the pack” and criticized the other candidates for simply “checking the box” on anti-abortion issues.

When discussing his track record as a champion of the partial birth abortion ban, Santorum dismissed exceptions other senators wanted to carve out to protect the life and health of mothers, calling such exceptions “phony”:

SANTORUM: When I was leading the charge on partial birth abortion, several members came forward and said, “Why don’t we just ban all abortions?” Tom Daschle was one of them, if you remember. And Susan Collins, and others. They wanted a health exception, which of course is a phony exception which would make the ban ineffective.

In other stupid Republican news, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker had a painting of poor and homeless children removed from the governor’s mansion. From Mother Jones:

Walker has made headlines again after he removed a painting depicting three Wisconsin children—one had been homeless, one came from low-income family, and a third who had lost family members in a drunk-driving accident. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the painting was one of numerous pieces of art commissioned by the fund that operates the governor’s mansion—works that were intended to remind the governor of the constituents he or she represents.

Here’s the Journal Sentinel on the painting by artist David Lenz:

In an interview, Lenz said he carefully selected the three children portrayed in “Wishes in the Wind.” The African-American girl, featured in a Journal Sentinel column on homelessness, spent three months at the Milwaukee Rescue Mission with her mother. The Hispanic girl is a member of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Milwaukee. And the boy’s father and brother were killed by a drunken driver in 2009.

“The homeless, central city children and victims of drunk drivers normally do not have a voice in politics,” Lenz explained in an email. “This painting was an opportunity for future governors to look these three children in the eye, and I hope, contemplate how their public policies might affect them and other children like them.”

He added: “I guess that was a conversation Governor Walker did not want to have.”

In other news, at Camp Shelby in Mississippi, 77 army cadets were struck by lightening and hospitalized. Let’s hope they’ll all be okay. The weather sure is strange this year!

I’ll end with this interesting story from the LA Times: Autism linked to hundreds of genetic mutations.

Autism is not caused by one or two gene defects but probably by hundreds of different mutations, many of which arise spontaneously, according to research that examined the genetic underpinnings of the disorder in more than 1,000 families.

The findings, reported in three studies published Wednesday in the journal Neuron, cast autism disorders as genetically very complex, involving many potential changes in DNA that may produce, essentially, different forms of autism.

The affected genes, however, appear to be part of a large network involved in controlling the development of synapses, the critical junctions between nerve cells that allow them to communicate, according to one of the three studies.

Although the work will have no immediate value to patients or their families, the insights provide a wealth of targets to pursue in developing treatments for the disorder, scientists said. Understanding the genetic causes of autism spectrum disorders may promote more accurate diagnoses, and research on synapse formation and function could yield treatments that address the flow of signals between nerve cells.

What are you reading and blogging about today? Please share!!

Monday Reads

Posted: June 6, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Economy, Foreign Affairs, morning reads, Yemen | Tags: , , , | 32 Comments

Good Morning!

The top stories on every one’s mind these days are the lousy jobs report last week and the tumbling stock markets.  Democrats in the House are calling for new infrastructure spending as a way to create more jobs in the hopes that a few federal projects could provide some stimulus to the stalling recovery.

“The American people, while concerned about the deficit, place much more emphasis on job creation, and they see a role for the government,” Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) told The Hill. “A fast injection of job stimulus on the public side would help tremendously. … It [the job report] helps our argument about investment.”

Other Democrats delivered a similar message on Friday. Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) said “the answer” to the lingering jobs crisis is “investment” in the “communities and businesses who need confidence and resources to hire [people].”

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) said “investing in our communities goes hand in hand with full economic recovery.”

Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) said that only in Washington is targeted new spending being demonized.

“Once you get outside the Beltway, almost everyone agrees that we should be rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure and investing in clean American energy that reduces our dependence on oil,” Blumenauer said.

Meanwhile, the major reason for home foreclosures these days isn’t the subprime loan scandal.  It’s unemployment.

The Obama administration’s main program to keep distressed homeowners from falling into foreclosure has been aimed at those who took out subprime loans or other risky mortgages during the heady days of the housing boom. But these days, the primary cause of foreclosures is unemployment.

As a result, there is a mismatch between the homeowner program’s design and the country’s economic realities — and a new round of finger-pointing about how best to fix it.

The administration’s housing effort does include programs to help unemployed homeowners, but they have been plagued by delays, dubious benefits and abysmal participation. For example, a Treasury Department effort started in early 2010 allows the jobless to postpone mortgage payments for three months, but the average length of unemployment is now nine months. As of March 31, there were only 7,397 participants.

“So far, I think the public record will show that programs to help unemployed homeowners have not been very successful,” said Jeffrey C. Fuhrer, an executive vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.

One additional question is popping up now that it appears more than certain that some entitlements will be subject to cuts, That is why aren’t Democrats defending Medicaid?  Democrats have spoken out against cuts to Social Security and have defended Medicare.  What about Medicaid?

…for all the Democrats’ posturing and campaigning against Republican plans for Medicare, the GOP budget actually makes more immediate and deeper cuts to Medicaid. But Democrats haven’t been blasting the GOP Medicaid plan with nearly the same fervor, even though Republicans would cut about $750 billion from the program during the next decade and end the guaranteed federal match for states.

With intense budget negotiations on the debt limit under way, health care insiders think Democrats won’t budge much on Medicare now that they have a significant campaign chip in their pockets: Kathy Hochul’s upset win in New York’s 26th Congressional District is Exhibit A of the power of Medicare.

And that makes advocates worry that Medicaid cuts are more likely to come out of budget negotiations led by Vice President Biden.

Medicaid covers more than 50 million people, including low-income children and seniors in long-term care, but it doesn’t pack the same political punch as Medicare. Some observers say that’s due to the lingering perception that Medicaid is just a program for poor people that holds a much less broad-based appeal.

That perception is definitely part of the challenge in communicating Democratic opposition to the GOP’s Medicaid plans, Rep. Robert Andrews (D-N.J.) told POLITICO.

Medicaid “doesn’t quite have the same political dynamic” as Medicare, Andrews said.

Protestors in Wisconsin have opened a ‘Walkerville’ Tent city in Madison as a reminder of the Great Depression and to protest the governor’s budget.  Wisconsin is leading the way in protesting the way state budgets are being balanced on the backs of the poor and the working and middle classes.

In a move meant to evoke the infamous “Hooverville” tent cities of the Great Depression, protesters in Madison, Wisconsin opened “Walkerville” on Saturday evening, a tent city in the heart of Madison intended as a protest of Governor Scott Walker’s budget plan.

The Wisconsin Sentinel Journal calls the protest “the latest act in the 2011 political drama featuring the governor’s push to eliminate most collective bargaining rights for most public employees”.

By 9:00pm, an estimated 250 campers in up to 100 tents were arrayed throughout the designated protest area, with many campers pitching their tents on concrete sidewalks. City police, state troopers, and other law enforcement personnel were on hand, but on the whole a carnival air prevailed as families set up for the night, some intending to stay just for a night or two and others through June 20.

Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh is in Saudia Arabia recovering from injuries suffered in an attack on his palace last week.  Many people are encouraging him to stay there.

The United States and Britain are pressing Saudi Arabia to persuade the Yemeni president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, to formally stand down after flying to Riyadh for treatment for injuries that were sustained in shelling in Sana’a on Friday.

Diplomats said that Washington and London were insisting that Saleh now be urged to implement a deal under which he would relinquish power in exchange for immunity from prosecution and financial guarantees about his future.

Pro-democracy protestors in Yemen were celebrating his departure after 33 years in power, but the Arab world’s poorest country still faces turmoil as well as immediate concerns over whether a truce will hold if Saleh tries to return and his relatives and supporters fight back.

The risks ahead were underlined by clashes in the southern city of Taiz, which left at least two dead and four injured. Shelling was also reported in Sana’a.

Saleh was described as recovering following emergency medical treatment in a Riyadh military; he was injured by shrapnel when his palace compound was attacked by tribal rivals.

Yemen’s ruling party, the General People’s Congress, insisted he would be back, but diplomats and analysts expressed doubt, suggesting that Saudi patience with an always fractious and often manipulative neighbour was exhausted.

It would be impossible for Saleh to return, argued Abdul Ghani Iryani, a respected Yemeni political commentator. “He is out. That is the only rational course. The exit of the president has defused some of the tensions and war is less likely today than it was yesterday.”

Evidently John Edwards is going to trial because the Feds offered him a plea deal that included prison time.

Just before John Edwards was indicted Friday, prosecutors made a final offer: They would accept his guilty plea to three misdemeanor campaign finance law violations in the $925,000 cover-up of his affair.

With the deal, the former Democratic vice-presidential nominee would avoid a felony conviction – and almost certainly keep the law license that had made him wealthy.

But there was a catch.

The government wanted to dictate a sentence that would result in up to six months of prison for Edwards, even with the plea to lesser charges.

Edwards and his lawyers were concerned. They wanted the ability to at least argue to a judge for alternatives, such as a halfway house, weekend releases, home arrest or some arrangement that would allow Edwards to be with his school-age children. He is a single parent after the death of his wife, Elizabeth, in December.

Yeah, right.  My guess is he doesn’t want to be some one’s mistress.

So, that’s what I’ve dug up today.  What’s on your reading and blogging list?

Late Night Good News

Posted: June 5, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Foreign Affairs, Hillary Clinton, Libya, Women's Rights | Tags: | 8 Comments

Iman Obeidi is on her way to the U.S. compliments of Madam Secretary.

Marwa Obeidi told the Associated Press that a human rights group aided by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton arranged for Iman and their father to travel in a private plane to Washington by way of Malta and Austria.

The U.S. State Department had expressed concern for Obeidi’s safety after she was deported from Qatar.

Meanwhile, Libyan authorities in Tripoli have dismissed Obeidi as a drunk, a prostitute and a thief.

“Iman constantly felt scared and threatened even in Benghazi,” said her mother. “She was worried that at any moment Kadafi’s men would be near to kill her.”

Marwa Obeidi told the Associated Pres that her sister’s top priority in the U.S. would be to receive psychological treatment and to continue her studies.

“I am sure they will greet her with such warmth and kindness,” she said. “We are happy for her.”

 

Monday Reads

Posted: May 30, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Afghanistan, Elections, Foreign Affairs, Medicare, morning reads, Republican politics | Tags: , , , , , | 13 Comments

Happy Memorial Day!

While this is the usual time to remember America’s war dead from past wars, it’s good to remember that we still have  two wars going on today.  As the saying goes, War is Hell.  The BBC reports that Afghan leaders have put NATO on warning for recent ‘collateral damage’.

The BBC’s Quentin Sommerville said villagers brought their dead children to the governor’s office shouting: “See they aren’t Taliban”

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has forcefully condemned the killing of 14 civilians in the south-west of the country in a suspected Nato air strike.

Mr Karzai said his government had repeatedly asked the US to stop raids which end up killing Afghan civilians and this was his “last warning”.

A Nato spokesman said a team had been sent to Helmand province to investigate the attack carried out on Saturday.

Afghan officials say all those killed were women and children.

The strike took place in Nawzad district after a US Marines base came under attack.

The air strike, targeted at insurgents, struck two civilian homes, killing two women and 12 children, reports say.

“The president called this incident a great mistake and the murdering of Afghanistan’s children and women, and on behalf of the Afghan people gives his last warning to the US troops and US officials in this regard,” his office said.

The White House said it shared Mr Karzai’s concerns and took them “very seriously”.

A group from Sera Cala village travelled to Helmand’s capital, Lashkar Gah, bringing with them the bodies of eight dead children, some as young as two years old, says the BBC’s Quentin Sommerville in Kabul.

“See, they aren’t Taliban,” they chanted as the carried the corpses to local journalists and the governor’s mansion.

While insurgents are responsible for most civilian deaths in Afghanistan, the killings of Afghans by foreign soldiers is a source of deepening anger, our correspondent adds.

In other Afghan war news, a Nato commander was injured in Taliban suicide attack in Afghanistan.  This is from the UK Guardian.

A Taliban suicide bomber attacked a provincial governor’s compound in Takhar, killing the police chief of northern Afghanistan and seriously injuring a top Nato commander. Two other Afghan officials were also reported to have died in the attack. Several international servicemen were reported injured by eyewitnesses.

German officials confirmed to Spiegel magazine Major General Markus Kneip, who commands NATO  forces in the north Afghanistan, had received wounds that were “severe” but not life-threatening.

A Nato spokesman in Kabul confirmed western casualties but was unable to provide details.

The Taliban, meanwhile, claimed responsibility for the attack and pledged that “killing high ranking officials will continue.”

Mujeebullah Rahman, the deputy director of the local council in Takhar province, said the attack took place at about 4pm when a meeting to discuss local security operations was ending.

“The bomber was waiting in the corridor, wearing the uniform of an Afghan policeman,” Rahman said.

The attack capped a bloody 48 hours in which seven Americans, two British and two other Nato servicemen were killed by roadside bombs or by insurgents in the south of the country. So far 44 Nato soldiers have been killed this month, and .nearly 200 have died in the year.

While we continue to fund these wars, Republicans are demanding that any relief to tornado-wrecked Joplin Missouri must be offset by spending cuts elsewhere.  Congressman Eric Cantor–house majority leader–has joined in the call first sent out by Senator Majority Leader Mitch McConnell last week.  Talk about kicking people when they’re down!

Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) continued to stress Sunday that disaster relief funds for tornado-ravaged Missouri would have to be offset in the federal budget with cuts elsewhere.

The House majority leader added on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that there was a certainly a federal role in helping to rebuild Joplin, Mo., and that Congress would move after getting a request from President Obama.

But, he said, the government needs to act in this case like a family who faces an unforeseen expense and has to cut elsewhere.

“Because families don’t have unlimited money,” Cantor said. “And, really, neither does the federal government.”

Cantor began calling for offsets last Monday, the day after the tornado that has killed well over 100 struck Joplin. On Tuesday, a House appropriations subcommittee found a $1.5 billion offset to help finance an aid package.

Somebody needs to remind these guys that the government can raise revenues via taxes for legitimate expenditures.  That’s something families don’t have the ability to do.  There’s also printing money and borrowing money at nearly zero interest via Treasury Auctions. Cantor was honest enough to admit that Medicare played an “undeniable” role in the recent election in NY 2 6.

“It’s undeniable that it played some role in the election. Any time you have one side demagoguing and frankly, accusing the other side in a way that’s not factual of trying to reform the program, certainly that’s going to influence the electorate,” Cantor said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “As far as Medicare is concerned, there’s a simple choice here – either we’re going to save the program or let it go bankrupt.”

Wasserman Schultz, who appeared just after Cantor said, “Coming from the majority leader,” who was one of the “architects” of a 2010 midterm congressional election victory “focused on scaring seniors about what Democrats were doing with Medicare, he would know.”

“What we’re doing is making sure we can prevent Republicans from ending Medicare as we know it,” she said. “That’s what Kathy Hochul ran on leading up to her victory this Tuesday in New York 26.”

Voters were making it clear that they didn’t support the GOP’s budget plan, Wasserman Schultz asserted.

So, I thought I’d offer up some history of Memorial Day for you.  One of the things that I learned moving down here was that much of the south does not really celebrate the holiday and refer to it as a Yankee holiday even though it was supposed to be in remembrance of all civil war dead.  Many southern cities actually claim to have started the holiday.  I guess Mississippi sees things a little different. The holiday originated after the Civil War as “Decoration Day”.  It didn’t become a federal holiday until 1971.

Memorial Day was originally known as Decoration Day because it was a time set aside to honor the nation’s Civil War dead by decorating their graves. It was first widely observed on May 30, 1868, to honor the sacrifices of Civil War soldiers, by proclamation of General John A. Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization of former sailors and soldiers. On May 5, 1868, Logan declared in General Order No. 11 that:

The 30th of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land. In this observance no form of ceremony is prescribed, but posts and comrades will in their own way arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit.

During the first celebration of Decoration Day, General James Garfield made a speech at Arlington National Cemetery, after which 5,000 participants helped to decorate the graves of the more than 20,000 Union and Confederate soldiers buried in the cemetery.

This 1868 celebration was inspired by local observances of the day in several towns throughout America that had taken place in the three years since the Civil War. In fact, several Northern and Southern cities claim to be the birthplace of Memorial Day, including Columbus, Miss.; Macon, Ga.; Richmond, Va.; Boalsburg, Pa.; and Carbondale, Ill.

So, it’s not all about mattresses and sales tax holidays!!!  My mother used to tell me that all the relatives would go clean up the family cemeteries on memorial day in Missouri and Kansas.  They would all have huge picnics along with trimming the overgrown bushes or flowers.  We used to continue the tradition when I was very young until most of the cemeteries started using huge mowers and removed all bushes and flowers.  As I recall, we had an ongoing battle in one cemetery with massive and profuse peony bushes.

So, that’s my offering for the day!  Have a really wonderful holiday!  What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

Friday Reads

Posted: May 27, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Foreign Affairs, Libya, morning reads, Patriot Act | Tags: , , , | 18 Comments

Good Morning!

Controversial portions of the Patriot Act were set to expire yesterday unless renewed by congress.  The renewed law was sent to the President in Europe to be signed into law via electronic signature using  an autopen.  The tornado coverage pretty much moved any discussion of the pros and cons of this move out of the public eye.  Here’s some information from Senator Ron Wyden explaining that the government just keeps increasing its ability to spy on its citizens. We never seem to get honest discussions about these topics.

  Wyden (D-Oregon) says that powers they grant the government on their face, the government applies a far broader legal interpretation — an interpretation that the government has conveniently classified, so it cannot be publicly assessed or challenged. But one prominent Patriot-watcher asserts that the secret interpretation empowers the government to deploy ”dragnets” for massive amounts of information on private citizens; the government portrays its data-collection efforts much differently.

“We’re getting to a gap between what the public thinks the law says and what the American government secretly thinks the law says,” Wyden told Danger Room in an interview in his Senate office. “When you’ve got that kind of a gap, you’re going to have a problem on your hands.”

What exactly does Wyden mean by that? As a member of the intelligence committee, he laments that he can’t precisely explain without disclosing classified information. But one component of the Patriot Act in particular gives him immense pause: the so-called “business-records provision,” which empowers the FBI to get businesses, medical offices, banks and other organizations to turn over any “tangible things” it deems relevant to a security investigation.

“It is fair to say that the business-records provision is a part of the Patriot Act that I am extremely interested in reforming,” Wyden says. “I know a fair amount about how it’s interpreted, and I am going to keep pushing, as I have, to get more information about how the Patriot Act is being interpreted declassified. I think the public has a right to public debate about it.”

So, the interesting thing is that Senator Rand Paul held the act up in the Senate with a procedural move.  This turned out to be mostly symbolic as the Patriot Act was eventually renewed.

Freshman Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a Patriot Act opponent who had used procedural tactics to delay a final vote on the bill for much of the week, eventually worked out a deal with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to get votes on two of his amendments – but not before Reid accused the libertarian, tea-party darling of “political grandstanding” and trying to protect terrorists.

While Paul’s amendments ultimately failed by wide margins, Republican leaders blocked Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) from even getting a vote on his bipartisan amendment that would have required greater congressional oversight of the anti-terrorism tools in the law.

Leahy briefly threatened to delay the final vote himself – a rare move for the chairman tasked with shepherding the bill through the Senate. But he later backed off, vowing to introduce his amendment as a stand-alone bill.

“I do feel this really ruins the chances to make the Patriot Act one that could have had far, far greater bipartisan support, and we have lost a wonderful chance,” Leahy said on the Senate floor, “but I understand that we have to do what the Republicans want on this bill.”

The longtime liberal from Vermont voted no and rejected assertions by Republicans that his objections would have been to blame for the Patriot Act provisions expiring, something top Obama administration officials warned could threaten national security during a time of heightened alert.

“There is no conceivable way this thing can get passed and signed by the president anyway [before the provisions expire],” Leahy told two reporters before the vote, unaware that the White House intended to attach the president’s signature via autopen. “So that was the most bogus, damn argument that’s been made in this place today.”

When asked if Reid, his party’s leader, had poorly managed the amendment process, Leahy replied: “I can’t even answer that with a straight face.”

Meanwhile, Republicans in the Senate are trying to stop the current Senate session from going into recess to block any appointment by President Obama of Elizabeth Warren to the CFPB.  There are other recession appointments that could be made by the President but this particular one was being pushed by some liberal senators including Minnesota’s Al Franken.

Some Republicans feared that Obama would use the recess to appoint Elizabeth Warren to head the controversial Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which will have broad powers over Wall Street.

A coalition of liberal groups has launched a petition pushing for a recess appointment of Warren.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (Ala.), the ranking Republican on the Budget Committee, also threatened to block the Senate’s complete adjournment in order to protest Democrats’ decision not to mark-up a budget blueprint in the panel or bring a Democratic plan to the floor.

To avoid the cumbersome process of holding a vote on the adjournment resolution, Reid opted for the compromise of holding pro-forma meetings next week, GOP sources say.

Additionally, forty-six Republican senators set a letter to  Reid via Sessions asking the majority leader to not adjourn the Senate without the Budget Committee marking up a spending plan.  This was generally seen as a political move to block the appointments instead of being an honest request for budget discussions.

The Supreme Court upheld law aimed at punishing businesses that hire undocumented workers. This was a law that was challenged by the US Chamber of Commerce.  It was called the business death penalty.

The Supreme Court on Thursday gave Arizona and other states more authority to take action against illegal immigrants and the companies that hire them, ruling that employers who knowingly hire illegal workers can lose their license to do business.

The 5-3 decision upholds the Legal Arizona Workers Act of 2007 and its so-called business death penalty for employers who are caught repeatedly hiring illegal immigrants. The state law also requires employers to check the federal E-Verify system before hiring new workers, a provision that was also upheld Thursday.

The court’s decision did not deal with the more controversial Arizona law passed last year that gave police more authority to stop and question those who are suspected of being in the state illegally. But the ruling is likely to encourage the state and its supporters because the court majority said states remained free to take action involving immigrants.

Thursday’s decision is a defeat for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, several civil-rights groups and the Obama administration, all of whom opposed the Arizona law and its sanctions on employers. They argued that federal law said states may not impose “civil or criminal sanctions” on employers.

Another important judicial decision was made in Wisconsin yesterday when a judge struck down the Wisconsin law that aimed at weakening union membership.  The bill was rushed through to avoid dealing with Democratic Senators who had fled the state to deny a quorum.  The judge ruled the bill’s passage did no meet Wisconsin law for properly passing laws.

In a 33-page decision, Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi overturned the legislation and ruled that GOP lawmakers broke the state’s open meetings law in passing it March 9 amid raucous protests by union supporters. The legislation would limit collective bargaining to wages for all public employees in Wisconsin, except for police and firefighters, and impose cuts in their health and pension benefits to help balance a massive state budget shortfall.

On March 18, Sumi had placed a temporary hold on the law, but Thursday’s ruling voided it – at least until the Supreme Court decides whether to act in the case.

“It’s what we were looking for,” said Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne, a Democrat, even as he acknowledged the higher court could have the final say.

The ruling – the latest kicker in a tumultuous three and a half months – could push GOP lawmakers to pass the collective bargaining measure again. It also highlights the importance of Supreme Court Justice David Prosser’s election to the sharply divided court following a statewide recount – one that Prosser opponent JoAnne Kloppenburg is still considering whether to challenge. And in a sign of the financial stakes, a legislative panel Thursday voted to drop $30 million in savings from employee benefits that the legislation would have delivered by June 30.

A priest in an Italian archdiocese who is  top adviser to Pope Benedict XVI was arrested May 13 on pedophilia and drug charges in a drug and sex ring investigation.  The priest is also HIV positive.  A retired priest told reporters that he had complained about the offending priest back in 1994.  My guess is that this priest didn’t attend Woodstock.

Father Riccardo Seppia, a 51-year-old parish priest in the village of Sastri Ponente, near Genoa, was arrested last Friday, May 13, on pedophilia and drug charges. Investigators say that in tapped mobile-phone conversations, Seppia asked a Moroccan drug dealer to arrange sexual encounters with young and vulnerable boys. “I do not want 16-year-old boys but younger. Fourteen-year-olds are O.K. Look for needy boys who have family issues,” he allegedly said. Genoa Archbishop Angelo Bagnasco, who is the head of the Italian Bishops Conference, had been working with Benedict to establish a tough new worldwide policy, released this week, on how bishops should handle accusations of priestly sex abuse.

Reports from Libya indicate the use of systematic rape by Ghaddafi forces.  Hundreds of  women in Misratah may have been systematically raped.  Members of the Libyan rebels have offered to marry young girls that have been subjected to these rapes.  Doctors are performing abortions and treating STDs as required.  Counselors who helped during the Bosnia conflict have been sent to the area.

THE young Libyan soldier showed almost no emotion as he described how his unit had raped four sisters, the youngest about 16, after breaking into a home in the besieged port of Misratah.

“My officer sent three of us up to the roof to guard the house while they tied up the father and mother and took the girls to two rooms, two each to a room,” said Walid Abu Bakr, 17.

“My two officers and the others raped the girls first,” he recalled in a monotone, still dressed in the camouflage uniform he was wearing when he surrendered 12 days ago. They were playing music. They called me down and ordered me to rape one of the girls.”

Abu Bakr, from Traghen, a poor southern town, claimed he had been given hashish and was not responsible.

So, last on my reading list is another item from Time Magazine entitled ‘Sex, Lies, Arrogance: What Makes Powerful Men Behave So Badly?’  My answers will sound vaguely familiar.  It’s because they can get away with it.

By now social commentators have the explanations on auto-save: We know that powerful men can be powerfully reckless, particularly when, like DSK, they stand at the brink of their grandest achievement. They tend to be risk takers or at least assess risk differently — as do narcissists who come to believe that ordinary rules don’t apply. They are often surrounded by enablers with a personal or political interest in protecting them to the point of covering up their follies, indiscretions and crimes. A study set to be published in Psychological Sciencefound that the higher men — or women — rose in a business hierarchy, the more likely they were to consider or commit adultery. With power comes both opportunity and confidence, the authors argue, and with confidence comes a sense of sexual entitlement. If fame and power make sex more constantly available, the evolutionary biologists explain, it may weaken the mechanisms of self-restraint and erode the layers of socialization that we impose on teenage boys and hope they eventually internalize.

“When men have more opportunity, they tend to act on that opportunity,” says psychologist Mark Held, a private practitioner in the Denver area who specializes in male sexuality and the problems of overachievers. “The challenge becomes developing ways to control the impulses so you don’t get yourself into self-defeating situations.”

I’ll leave further explanations up to BostonBoomer.  So, that’s my offering for this morning.  What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

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